Re: Cleaning House

On May 3, 2007, at 1:09 AM, Dave Raggett wrote:

> If the spec needs to be so tightly intercoupled that modularity  
> isn't feasible then we are in deep trouble as this is likely to  
> make it hard to spot detailed problems and will also take much  
> longer to reach Recommendation status. Such tight intercoupling  
> will make it nearly impossible to provide an complete set of test  
> assertions and an associated test suite, would seem like poor  
> practice.

This is a question of the spec requirements, not how it is  
partitioned into sections. For example, if parsing and scripting are  
in fact interdependent, we'll need test cases that test their  
interaction, and conformance requirements that describe the interaction.

> I am however convinced that HTML can be specified in a more modular  
> fashion, and that this would allow the hTML WG to prioritise and  
> progress modules on a much quicker basis than one giant spec. I am  
> sure that many people would like to see a sequence of modular W3C  
> Recommendations coming out a regular intervals rather than waiting  
> many years for the big bang. The work of the editors will be  
> reduced by this approach despite the initial investment in  
> splitting the spec into modules, however, I bet that in the  
> process, they and we will discover things along the way that will  
> make the combined specs much stronger as a result.

I'm more inclined to trust the judgment of the editors on what will  
let them work more quickly.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 3 May 2007 17:27:15 UTC