Meeting Summary - 25 June

[Weekly conference call, 25 June 2007] F2F well subscribed. TP topics.
Normative names? Vocab contributions. Two docs to be published soon.
Problem with tools for mapping IDL to languages. Details follow:

[F2F] We expect 10+ members to attend the London F2F next July. An
agenda is being determined this week.

[TP Topics] The W3C is holding a Technical Plenary meeting in Boston in
November and groups are being asked to consider topics for discussion.
The harmonization of markup languages (XHTML-MP/Basic) is one
possibility. Another is the (probable) false impression that having one
markup language for all browsers is enough to ensure the success of the
mobile Web. Other W3C groups need to be educated on the findings of
DIWG/UWA, BPWG and DDWG in this regard.

[Names] There was a proposed resolution put to the group that only the
identifier names in the ontology would be normative. Such names could be
used (as strings) in API calls to identify the properties being
stored/requested. However, the ontology might contain alternatives that
could be useful for convenience in various programming languages (e.g. a
camel-case version, an underscore_separated version, etc.). However, it
was noted that other vocabularies could operate concurrently with the
DDR Core Vocabulary, and the group has yet to consider issues such as
namespacing to avoid confusion between vocabularies. Would the name
include a namespace? Would the namespace be a separate parameter? Is
there an alternative to namespacing? It was decided that the group would
keep the proposed resolution on the table and wait until a better
understanding of the naming needs of the API was achieved. (Generally,
however, there was much sympathy for having normative names as part of
the specification.)

[Vocab] The public vocabulary contribution process is active, as is the
discussion mailing list. Everyone is encouraged to contribute. Rhys and
Kevin are already preparing new material, and others are expected to
follow.

[Publications] There were few wiki updates this week, but two of the
legacy documents (Landscape and Ecosystem) are now substantially
complete. The group is aiming to agree to publish these as final
versions at the F2F. Some extraction from wiki to XMLSpec will be
necessary as part of the publication process. Everyone is encouraged to
do one last proof-read of the texts.

[IDL Tools] The group has identified a problem regarding tools to map
IDL to implementation languages. Unfortunately, the tools that W3C has
used in the past are no longer supported, and cannot be made to work
properly. Nacho proposed that an XML version of IDL be used, from which
various language mappings could be obtained via XSLT. Such a tool would
be useful to the group to see how the API would appear in different
programming languages, without having to develop/maintain these by hand.
It was also proposed that the group use Java as a sample target
programming language, and possibly even design/prototype via this
language, though keeping the IDL as the normative definition. The
question of how to determine if an implementation was conformant to the
final IDL was also discussed. As the mappings are not unique (i.e.
alternative mappings from IDL to Language-X are possible), it was
suggested that black-box (functional) behaviour might be the only means
to determine conformance, rather than inspection of the mappings.

[New Actions] (ACTION-51) Kevin to send e-mail reminder to group to
review requirements doc.

[Attendees]
Jose Manuel Cantera Fonseca (Telefonica)
Rafael Casero Escamilla (SATEC)
Dimitar Denev (Fraunhofer FIT)
Anders Ekstrand (Drutt)
Rodrigo Garcia (CTIC)
Rotan Hanrahan (MobileAware)
Martin Jones (Volantis)
Nacho Marin (CTIC)
Eman Nkeze (Boeing)
Jo Rabin (dotMobi)
Mike Smith (W3C)
Andrea Trasatti (dotMobi/WURFL)

Received on Thursday, 28 June 2007 18:58:58 UTC