Protocol feature sets and specification clarity

In setting up a HTML testing task force, I wanted to bring
up some work I did earlier in IETF on a proposal to formalize
the notion of what "independent interoperable implementations
of every feature".

I'd made a proposal for trying to formalize interoperability
reports

http://larry.masinter.net/draft-ietf-newtrk-interop-reports-00.html


and Peter Saint-Andre built one for the XMPP protocol.

http://xmpp.org/internet-drafts/draft-saintandre-xmpp-feature-set-00.html


While perhaps too formal for HTML testing, having a clear
definition of "feature" and what is or isn't a normative
requirement for producers of HTML and consumers of HTML
(or more specialized roles such as editor, summarizer,
translator, spider, validator, etc.) might be a useful
way to also understand spec quality.

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net



-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Saint-Andre [mailto:stpeter@stpeter.im] 
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 8:17 AM
To: LMM@acm.org
Subject: Re: I-D Action:draft-saintandre-xmpp-feature-set-00.txt

I like the idea of feature names, since that makes them easier to
reference. One thing I discovered while working on the feature set is
that it forces you to be clearer about the features themselves in the
specs. I wonder if it makes sense to have a "feature index" in each spec
so that implementors can easily find the referenced features. I may
experiment with that for the next revision of the XMPP bis drafts.

Do you think a feature set should also describe how the feature can be
tested? For example, the features you list below are indeed testable
since you (as a client) can try to include disallowed characters in a
domain name or try to set a domain identifier that is longer than 1023
bytes. The server to which you're connected should enforce the rule.

Granted, it's even more work to specify all that, but that's what we're
here for, no? :)

Larry Masinter wrote:
> Interesting. Much more elaborate than I had imagined; I was thinking more
> of a list 
> 
> Feature: "nameprep-domain-identifier"
>   spec: rfc3920bis/section 3.2
>   requirement: does domain identifier conform to Nameprep profile of Stringprep
>   mandatory: Client - SHOULD, Server - MUST
> 
> Feature "max-domain-identifier-length"
>   spec: rfc 3920bis/section 3.2
>   requirement: domain identifier portion of XMPP address not exceed 1023 bytes
>   mandatory: all roles: MUST
> 
> 
> Features should be things you can test in an interoperability test, though.
> I don't know how to test those things, exactly.
> 
> 
> Larry
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Saint-Andre [mailto:stpeter@stpeter.im] 
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:57 AM
> To: LMM@acm.org
> Subject: FW: I-D Action:draft-saintandre-xmpp-feature-set-00.txt
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> FYI.
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>  Title           : A Feature Set for the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)
>  Author(s)       : P. Saint-Andre
>  Filename        : draft-saintandre-xmpp-feature-set-00.txt
>  Pages           : 17
>  Date            : 2007-10-31
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> This document defines a protocol feature set for the Extensible
> Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), in accordance with the
> concepts and formats proposed by Larry Masinter within the NEWTRK
> Working Group.
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-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

Received on Thursday, 24 September 2009 05:17:34 UTC