RE: Testable assertion tagging for W3C specifications

>I don't know the cost, and I don't know the benefit.

Another technique is to have a separate test/conformance document that
points directly into a technical specification or quotes test from the
normative document.  For example, see the SOAP 1.2 test/conformance
document [1].

[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/2/03/11/soap-1.2-conformance.html 

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada 
17 Eleanor Drive, Nepean, Ontario K2E 6A3 
Tel: (613) 225-5445 Fax: (425) 936-7329 
<mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com> 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Robie
[mailto:jonathan.robie@datadirect-technologies.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 6:03 PM
> To: Lofton Henderson; scott_boag@us.ibm.com
> Cc: spec-prod@w3.org; w3c-query-editors@w3.org; www-qa@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Testable assertion tagging for W3C specifications
> 
> We already do some things to ensure consistency and correctness in our
> documents.
> 
> We use xmlspec, which gives us consistency in markup and formatting
> conventions. We use conventions for our markup that allow us to do
queries
> that extract the queries from the use cases or the XQuery spec, so
that we
> can run them through a parser or test them against an implementation
(this
> does require some manual intervention). We generate a parser from the
same
> markup that generates the productions for the grammar in our
documents. We
> have a Formal Semantics document. All of these things result in real
> effort, but we have decided that the quality gains associated with
them
> justify the effort.
> 
> Can someone do a mockup of how automatic tagging of assertions would
be
> used, the level of correctness that could be guaranteed from this
> approach,
> the extent to which this constrains editors in describing features,
etc?
> So
> far, I have not heard anything concrete enough to let me assess the
> cost/benefit. I don't know the cost, and I don't know the benefit.
> 
> Jonathan

Received on Monday, 6 May 2002 22:38:30 UTC