Re: Feb 13 Hypertext CG: Topic will be Test Suites

Raphaël,

Please use the following as an input to your discussion at upcoming HT CG:

============================================================================
Michael Hausenblas, DERI, Ireland, michael.hausenblas@deri.org

Regarding my experience with W3C Test Suites, I might need to say in advance
that it is limited to the RDFa Test Suite [1], [2] (the latter done together
with Manu Sporny from DigitalBazaar).

I started out in 01/2007 with some background reading [3] and found some
interesting stuff round EARL, how others did it, etc.

Two main issues have been identified:

1. The lack of a clear definition of the overall process; material is spread
over various W3Cs pages, etc. - people willing to take over the TC are
forced to read through a lot of material after investing quite a time to
find out what actually *is* relevant for building a Test Suite.

2. It needs to be clarified that the TC are primarily for the WG to check if
the specification can be implemented and only secondary to actually to test
implementations (or find out about interoperability between
implementations). A sound description of how conformance and TC play
together might help (there is material available such as [4], but rather
outdated, I guess?)

Finally I'd like to propose to *not* handle this issue on the HT CG-level.
This is certainly a W3C-wide issue. I think similar efforts have been on the
way in the recent years; my favourite there is [5], a W3C Working Draft from
20 August 2004:

'Progression and publication of this document is temporarily on hold.'
[sic!]

So, maybe, the best would be to start with the work available in [6] and
find volunteers throughout W3C which, assisted by the QA team, generate an
according framework. I'd certainly volunteer to contribute, as for both the
Media Fragments Work Group as well as for the (potentially) upcoming RDB2RDF
WG I'll likely take care of the TC and hence are very interested in a good
and usable foundation to build upon.
============================================================================

Cheers,
      Michael

[1] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/RDFa/testsuite/
[2] http://rdfa.digitalbazaar.com/rdfa-test-harness/
[3] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2007Jan/0049.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/QA/Taxonomy.html
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-test/
[6] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-qaframe-test-20021220/

-- 
Dr. Michael Hausenblas
DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
National University of Ireland, Lower Dangan,
Galway, Ireland, Europe
Tel. +353 91 495730
http://sw-app.org/about.html


> From: Michael Hausenblas <michael.hausenblas@deri.org>
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:21:55 +0000
> To: Raphaël Troncy <Raphael.Troncy@cwi.nl>
> Cc: Media Fragment <public-media-fragment@w3.org>
> Subject: Re: Feb 13 Hypertext CG: Topic will be Test Suites
> Resent-From: <public-media-fragment@w3.org>
> Resent-Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:22:39 +0000
> 
> 
> 
> Raphael,
> 
>> Michael, given you experience with the Test Suite made in RDFa, would
>> you like to draft an email summarizing your experience, what you have
>> done, what was a pain and what did work well, etc. Eric and I will
>> compile all feedback and send that later to the CG on behalf of the
>> group.
> 
> Sure thing. 
> 
> Btw, had a quick chat with TimBL re our URI fragments semantics issue, and
> added an according reference to the IRC log as a note to the issue [1].
> 
> Cheers,
>       Michael
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2008/WebVideo/Fragments/tracker/issues/3
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Michael Hausenblas
> DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
> National University of Ireland, Lower Dangan,
> Galway, Ireland, Europe
> Tel. +353 91 495730
> http://sw-app.org/about.html
> 
> 
>> From: Raphaël Troncy <Raphael.Troncy@cwi.nl>
>> Organization: CWI
>> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:15:41 +0100
>> To: Michael Hausenblas <michael.hausenblas@deri.org>
>> Cc: Media Fragment <public-media-fragment@w3.org>
>> Subject: Feb 13 Hypertext CG: Topic will be Test Suites
>> 
>> Dear Michael, all,
>> 
>> Context: The Media Fragments WG (as well as the Video Activity) is part
>> of the Hypertext domain and therefore, Erik and I participate in the
>> Hypertext Coordination Group [1].
>> 
>> Our next call (Feb 13) will be largely dedicated to a discussion of test
>> suites, testing methodologies, test review and maintenance, and tests in
>> the overall specification lifecycle. We are invited to contribute with
>> relevant materials (summaries of our approach, lists of problems
>> encountered or solutions found) and experiences.
>> 
>> It may be that we find sufficient commonality between groups that the
>> existing duplication of effort can be reduced by working on common
>> tools, best practices, etc. The HCG has already talked about that in our
>> Friday's call, see the minutes in [2] (member only!).
>> 
>> Michael, given you experience with the Test Suite made in RDFa, would
>> you like to draft an email summarizing your experience, what you have
>> done, what was a pain and what did work well, etc. Eric and I will
>> compile all feedback and send that later to the CG on behalf of the
>> group. Thanks.
>> Best regards.
>> 
>>    Raphaël
>> 
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/CoordGroup/
>> [2] http://www.w3.org/2009/01/30-hcg-minutes.html#item02
>> 
>> -- 
>> Raphaël Troncy
>> CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science),
>> Science Park 123, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
>> e-mail: raphael.troncy@cwi.nl & raphael.troncy@gmail.com
>> Tel: +31 (0)20 - 592 4093
>> Fax: +31 (0)20 - 592 4312
>> Web: http://www.cwi.nl/~troncy/
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 5 February 2009 12:27:44 UTC