[CSSWG] Minutes TPAC Sun 2012-10-28 AM II: Spec Shortnames, Prioritization

Spec Shortnames
---------------

   - Assigned actions for next steps in switching over all specs.

Prioritization
--------------

   - Co-chairs surveyed WG members about their priorities; results
     are posted at
       http://disruptive-innovations.com/zoo/customers/CSSWG/Priorities.html
     with VSI = Very Strong Interest
           SI = Strong Interest
           LI = Low Interest
           NI = No Interest
   - Top items are Flexbox, Transforms, Transitions, Animations, and
     Conditional Rules, regardless of formula.
   - Layout modules (flexbox, multicol, regions, grid) always in top ten
   - Middle shifts around depending on weighting formula, but
     Level 4 specs consistently towards the bottom of the list

====== Full minutes below ======


CSS spec shortnames
-------------------

   florian: Side question - naming question?  When do we do the naming
            switchover?
   plinss: We should verify with W3C about the TR naming, and do the
           whole switch at the same time as we publish these next drafts.
   Bert: You need a good reason to do a rename on TR.
   TabAtkins: (Not really a rename - the old links will just redirect to
              the new locations.)
   florian: The current naming convention is pretty inconsistent.  We've
            now decided on a real convention, and we'd like to apply it
            across all of them, with redirects so content isn't lost.
   Bert: We had a rule already, but the names are just us.  The names on
         /TR don't have a system.  But putting in lots of redirects and
         such is expensive.
   TabAtkins: Redirects are super cheap and easy, actually.
   Bert: But why did we want to do this?
   florian: The current naming patterns confuse people about "CSS3" and
            "CSS4", and are inconsistent with unleveled things.  The
            new system keeps everything consistent.
   plinss: We also want to have shortnames that are unlevelled that
           redirect to the latest level of each module.
   Bert: We have that for CSS1 and CSS2. We can make one for CSS3 as well.
   plinss: We don't want a "CSS3" link.  We want "/TR/css-writing-modes/"
           which redirects to "/TR/css-writing-modes-3/", etc.
   leaverou: If there's a Rec in level 3 and a WD in level 4, when does
             the unlevelled link switch over?
   fantasai: We switch when it reaches "Snapshot-level" stability.
   Bert: Well, I'm not going to ask.  I don't think we should do this.
   plinss: We're not asking you to ask, we're asking you *who* to ask.
   Bert: Our webmaster.
   fantasai: I'll take an action item for it.
   ACTION fantasai to bug the W3C webmaster about setting up redirects
          for the Great CSSWG Renaming (immediately before LC, natch)
   <trackbot> Created ACTION-512

Prioritization List
-------------------

   glazou: Starting tomorrow we'll have intrusions from observers and
           other WGs, etc.
   glazou: probably better to do this while we have a quiet environment.
   glazou: Here's the aggregated data from our survey.
     http://disruptive-innovations.com/zoo/customers/CSSWG/Priorities.html
   glazou: Not public yet, but I'll post it later today to www-style.

   szilles: If you tried other formulas, what was the variance?
   glazou: Almost no effect on the top 4 items, mostly just in the middle.

   florian: Picking up on a comment from dbaron earlier, there were a
            lot of specs that are *nearly* finished, and so high-priority
            to finish, but that I'm not really interested in personally.
            So I found it hard to rate things sometimes.
   glazou: Same as me - I had several specs that I thought were highly
           strategic for the WG, but that I don't personally care about.
   szilles: So that suggests that we might temporarily boost the priority
            of specs that are nearly out the door, just to finish them off.
            If that's accepted, I'm fine with this.
   glazou: There are a few points I'd like to draw from this.
   glazou: Whatever formula I used, TTA were always at the top.
   glazou: The layout modules (flexbox, multicol, regions, grid) are always
           in the top ten.
   glazou: There's not a single level 4 spec in the top ones; highest one
           ranges 17-30.
   <dbaron> 58 specs in list; 18 responses to survey

   glazou: 59 specs for a single group, even with all the people in this
           room, I think is far too much.
   glazou: We have the workforce to work on 12-15 specs. 59 is just crazy.
   glazou: I'm not saying we have to trash anything.  I'm just saying we
           should put some of them into a fridge to keep them fresh, and
           resurrect them when we're ready only.
   glazou: Some of the level 4 specs are here when the level 3 still
           doesn't have a test suite.
   TabAtkins: Though mostly, this was because we deferred things from L3,
              so had to put them somewhere -- therefore started a level 4
              draft

   glazou: I agree, but we have to care a bit more about the signals to
           the outside world.
   florian: I think it's not too important to publish a FPWD of things
            that we're not seriously pursuing yet.
   glazou: Even EDs are visible.  We have a wiki for this kind of thing.
   fantasai: wiki not a great place for spec test that's already been
             written but deferred
   szilles: No matter what we do, the public will be confused.  We can
            mitigate this, though.
   szilles: I think it would be useful to have something on the public page
            that bullet-points what levels things are.
   szilles: I think trying to make our working process painful isn't the
            answer.
   florian: We have a disclaimer for things that are obsolete and very wrong.
   florian: We can have one for the really immature drafts too.
   dbaron: We can make the title/h1 say "Material deferred from CSS-foo
           level 3 for future use".
   TabAtkins: Sounds good to me.
   glazou: I remind you that I heard at TTWF that things on dev.w3.org
           are better than /TR.
   glazou: So I don't want things looking better when they're experimental
           versus real specs.
   fantasai suggests using the GeoCities stylesheet
     http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/spec-prod/2012AprJun/0000.html

   glazou: Continuing, the bottom of the table doesn't change very much.
   glazou: Some of these I didn't include in the original email, so their
           numbers aren't reliable.
   TabAtkins: Could you mark the rows specially for those that weren't
              in the original email?
   dbaron: Also, can we have a column that's just a straight sum of
           responses? Most of them have 18, some have 17, but some have
           next to none.

   glazou: Speech is strongly at the bottom, even though it's a CR.
   chris: If you have a spec with one strong editor and it's also the
          prime implementor, that's what you expect.
   glazou: So what do we do about it?
   fantasai: I think we leave it in CR and let the people who are interested
             in it write tests and such.
   fantasai: Speech is quite different from the rest of the specs, different
             canvas and such.
   * sylvaing +1 to fantasai
   glazou: I want to avoid 8 years of CR.
   dbaron: The 8 years of CR was an issue because we had a spec we all
           actually cared about.  It's not a problem for Speech.
   szilles: I think it's the role of the chairs to discuss with the champion
            what their plans are for the spec.  I agree that simply leaving
            it isn't the responsible thing to do.
   szilles: I mean, if we can't find a second implementor, but still believe
            it's implementable, we could change our CR exit criteria.
   chris: One thing we could do is talk to the WAI people and say "hey, we
          have this spec which could probably help you", and see if they
          have any implementor interest, and say that if we don't get any
          movement in two years or so we can move it back to Note, and see
          what happens.
   fantasai: I think it's a good thing to have a normative definition of
             what we think Speech should be done.
   fantasai: We currently have a Rec (CSS 2.0) that is definitely *not*
             what we want to do.
   fantasai: I think it's great to pursue the people who are interested
             and see if they're willing to help get it to CR, but I don't
             think we should be afraid to leave it at CR as the right way
             to implement for people that care.
   szilles: Two impls are definitely preferred, but one is technically
            sufficient for a standard.
   florian: So I think we should support a low-priority spec like that as
            long as they don't eat too much time.
   TabAtkins: Agree, and Speech hasn't needed much input for a while anyway.

   glazou: Back to the list, the takeaway is that the top and bottom don't
           change much regardless of your ranking formula, but the middle
           does.
   glazou: So there are definitely some specs that are *clearly* something
           the WG should work on.
   glazou: TTA is clearly the highest priority of all.
   glazou: So whoever you are, help TTA get out as a Rec asap.
   glazou: Flexbox is the 2nd or third spec in the list no matter what we
           do.  Strong interest from all vendors.
   TabAtkins: On that, I should have a test suite written by the end of
              the year.
   discussion of tests for flexbox
   <lstorset> FYI TabAtkins, Opera's Flexbox test suite is submitted at
     http://test.csswg.org/shepherd/search/testcase/spec/CSS3-FLEXBOX/owner/oyvind/load/t135/

   glazou: top 10 here, almost whatever I do, is the same
   glazou: nearly all members agree on these 10
   glazou: I think we should focus our time, energy, conf calls, on these
           ones if we can
   glazou: to solve technical issues, discuss them, make them move, etc. asap

   dbaron: One question about the responses.
   dbaron: Were these all one response per member company?
   glazou: Yes.
   leaverou: I think me and Bert both answered.
   leaverou: because you asked me to reply on behalf of the authoring community
   glazou: yes, that's fine. W3c is a bit special in this regard. You're
           more similar to an invited expert.

   glazou: A few personal surprises.
   glazou: I was surprised to see Device Adaptation lower than I thought.
   glazou: I was surprised to see 9 very strong interest for Regions.
   glazou: I was also a little puzzled to see more interest for Transforms
           than for Trans/Anim.
   <SimonSapin> that was me (and public)
   glazou: So I'd like us to use the top of this table to focus our effort
            in the coming months.  Not 100%, but high priority.
   * sylvaing would be interested to see browser vendor responses vs.
              everyone else
   * sylvaing (everone else including browser vendors i.e. browser makers
               compared to all)

   chris: typically the conf call agenda is just whatever has been talked
          about this week. Will this change to have the top-priority things
          showing up, even with just a progress report request?
   glazou: I think it might change a little bit, but not much.
   glazou: But like, if we have a request for 20 minutes for OM Values or
           something, not much chance, unless we just have a slow week.
   chris: Maybe a monthly roundup of all the major specs?
   dbaron: If we spend conf time on regular "simple updates", I think it's
           a waste of conf call time, and will stop attending conf calls.
           I've done it in the past when we'd done something like this.
   stearns: One thing that could take up conf time if the survey hasn't
            gotten any updates in six months or something.
   dbaron: We could have something on the agenda that points to a wiki
           page and requests updates, for example.
   dbaron: Even brainstorming is sometimes okay.  But it's the repeated
           "no updates this week" for 15 minutes each week.
   stearns: I was more thinking of public shaming to induce people to work
            on it.
   dbaron: Not a good use of conf call time. Do it in email.
   hober: Or Twitter.
   fantasai: On the topic of the top 3 specs, what *is* the hold up?
   arronei: I know one of the specs has a bunch of open issues.
   <sylvaing> Animations/Transitions have 30 open issues each (vs. 60-80
              a year ago). Need to work through them.
   <TabAtkins> We were going to discuss adding me as a co-editor, so
               dbaron wanted you here to help.
   [side discussion of when to schedule discussions; preferably when
    Dean and smfr are around]
   * sylvaing open css3-animations issues
       https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/buglist.cgi?product=CSS&component=Animations&resolution=---&list_id=1151
   * sylvaing tracking progress by spec section here
       https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Akz3Ts2PEQF2DFVua2toVjBtam9rd3h4LXJSTVdCV2c#gid=0

Received on Wednesday, 14 November 2012 06:37:19 UTC