ESSENCE — Formal definition of Practice, Alpha and other terms

Specification: Essence – Kernel and Language for Software Engineering Methods (ad/2013-02-01)

I would have preferred a formal definition of Practice, Alpha and other terms prior to a discussion of the different levels of conformance and rigor of these elements. It would make it easier to understand what is meant, especially since the word practice is previously in several different contexts. Possibly referencing section 4 at the beginning would help. It was also difficult to tell when the terms were referring to parts of the Essence language or just using the terms in normal English. Also, the fact that Alpha is in fact an acronym but is used throughout the specification as the proper noun is also confusing.
(From an evaluation comment by Matthew Hause.)

The fact that there are terms used in a specific technical sense in the Essence specification is unavoidable – it is a large part of the purpose of any specification document to make exactly such definitions, and understanding this is necessary to understand the specification. The extensive set of definitions provided in Clause 4 is intended to help with this for Essence. The fact that the term "Alpha" was originally coined as an acronym does not seem particularly important in understanding its technical definition as given in Clause 4 and later use in the main body of the specification.

Placing the definition of conformance in Clause 2 before the definitions in Clause 4 is as required by the OMG and ISO specification document template, and this organization is true of all current OMG specifications. Nevertheless, it would not hurt if, as suggested, a reference is made at the beginning of Clause 2 to the definitions in Clause 4.