Re: Ensuring consistency of terminology

Brian McBride wrote:

> At 15:06 31/10/2002 -0500, Frank Manola wrote:
> 
>> Brian--
>>
>> Sounds great,
> 
> 
> Don't it just!
> 
>> but I see this creating the potential for an awful lot of delay (e.g., 
>> for the Primer, it looks like I have to wait until all the normative 
>> docs figure out their terms, and resolve any inconsistencies, before I 
>> can even know what *words* I can use!).
> 
> 
> Yup, I reckon the primer would be most affected.
> 
>> Also, what do you do if you decide you need a term whose "natural 
>> home" ought to be in another document, but they haven't defined it?  
>> Petition the editor to invent it?
> 
> 
> Yup.
> 
> "An awful lot of delay" is not good news.  I proposed a kinda of 
> idealistic view which I guess is where we'd like to be when we are 
> done.  What do you see as the most practical way to get there?
> 


I'd have W3C buy us a Bagotronics Business Time Machine (full page ad in 
the New York Times on Tuesday), send the whole WG back a year, and start 
compiling the set of consistent terms and assigning them to documents 
much earlier.  ("Thanks to quark-gluon plasma chip technology, the first 
working time machine is now available for business purposes"; "If 
something didn't work, you just go back and fix it!"  "...performs as 
well as a machine that costs six times as much, but at only three easy 
payments of $299.95, it's affordable to companies of any size." 
"plug-and-play, type-and-travel technology").

 
--Frank


-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-875

Received on Thursday, 31 October 2002 18:25:17 UTC