HTML WG Testing Task Force

[Sent by Paul Cotton on behalf of Jason Upton]:

On the working group conference call on Sep 3rd [1] we discussed the formation of a Testing Task Force in the HTML WG. 

To exit from Candidate Recommendation we will need at least two interoperable implementations of each feature in the spec and a test suite to establish that interoperability. This is going to be a large amount of work and the sooner we begin preparing a comprehensive test suite the sooner we will meet this requirement of the W3C process.

Based on both our experience in other W3C working groups and our engineering practices at Microsoft, we often see that different sets of people are good at technical design from those who are good at test case development.  We therefore support the creation of a Testing Task Force within the HTML WG charged with creating the HTML5 test process, actual test case development, procedures for adding/removing cases to/from a test suite, and a versioning process for snapshots of the test suite vs. always having a moving target. We also believe that the early process of creating test cases may uncover some potential ambiguities in the spec text so that they can be discussed and addressed by the working group and this will help move us towards Last Call.

We know that various people in the working group have created test cases in the past. Indeed, Microsoft contributed some of the test cases we created during IE8 development earlier in the year [2]. One early action for a task force would be to collect and organize these test cases.

Microsoft would like to contribute resources to such a Testing task force.

As Maciej described on the Sep 3rd call, the next step is to solicit feedback from the group on public-html about the idea of a testing task force, the general parameters of the test suite and to call for volunteers to participate in such a task force. 

/paulc for Jason Upton

[1] http://www.w3.org/2009/09/03-html-wg-minutes.html#item04
[2] http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/ietestcenter/html5.htm

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329

Received on Wednesday, 9 September 2009 16:22:58 UTC