Getting ready for Markup Validator 0.8.4

Hi all,

On monday, a few of us went through the automated test suite for the
Markup Validator, both for "training" purposes and in order to assess
the possibility of a release later this week.

The test suite harness ran against the latest code base, with results
recorded in:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2008Nov/0012.html
... and subsequent analysis and bug fixing:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2008Nov/0013.html
No regression bugs were found, other than an issue with XHTML 1.1 DTD,
which I fixed.

(For info, rough documentation on test suite similar to the one for 
link checker sent here:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qa-dev/2008Jan/0014.html )


In preparation for a release, I have put together a changelog based on:

the Bugzilla activity since 2008-08-08 (release 0.8.3)
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Validator&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=2008-08-08&chfieldto=2008-11-20&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

the CVS commits in the markup validator codebase since 2008-08-08
http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/advanced_search?keywords=%2Fsources%2Fpublic%2Fvalidator%2F&hdr-1-name=subject&hdr-1-query=&hdr-2-name=from&hdr-2-query=syncmail&hdr-3-name=message-id&hdr-3-query=&period_month=&period_year=2008&index-grp=Public__FULL&index-type=t&type-index=www-validator-cvs&resultsperpage=100&sortby=date


Rough Changelog:

* Integration with the HTML5 parser of validator.nu. 
  e.g http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Aug/0079.html
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Aug/0040.html
* Fixed a typo in the XHTML1.1 DTD which would cause error messages when
* validating XHTML 1.1 documents
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Nov/0029.html
* fixed typo that hindered proper support for "HTML 18n" document type.
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Aug/0018.html
* Documentation: Note environment variables affecting connectivity
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Nov/0008.html
* Documentation: fixed typo in the installation instructions for OpenSP. 
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Oct/0027.html
  Updated roadmap: http://validator.w3.org/todo.html
* Error message explanation improved for "end of document in prolog"
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Oct/0002.html
* fixed a code syntax bug that would flood logs with warnings
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/2008Aug/0035.html

I prepared a webified version of the changelog, now visible at:
http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/whatsnew.html
... and bulk-changed a few s/0.8.3/0.8.4/ in the source.

If there is anything I forgot, or if you have any suggestion for a
better wording of the changelog, please chime in ASAP!


I still have on my todo list to add a bit of documentation in the
installation guide about the html5 engine, and a note in the validator
config file. 


Tomorrow I will draft the announcement to be sent to the www-validator list. 
I expect it to be a fairly straight forward copy-paste of the changelog, modeled
or meta info and credits after the recent similar announcements:
0.8.3 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2008Aug/0022.html
0.8.2 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Oct/0056.html
0.8.1 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Aug/0082.html
0.8.0 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Jul/0138.html
0.8.0b2 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Jun/0002.html
0.8.0b1 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2007Apr/0074.html
0.7.4 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2006Nov/0041.html
0.7.3 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2006Oct/0080.html

Mike, I think it would be great to have a Q&A Blog post ready for when
we actually flip the switch (likely, Thursday morning EST). Even better
if you could work on something with Henri (subscribed to this list
IIRC). Or Karl, if you feel like writing something... If not, I guess
I'll take the quill, and more or less repeat what I'll write to w-v.

This is quite probably the last release of the Markup Validator I'll
orchestrate. Hope we'll make it a great one.

Thanks,
-- 
olivier

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 22:08:45 UTC