Re: Comment on SPARQL 1.1 Test Cases

On 6/18/2012 4:38 PM, Rob Vesse wrote:
> Finally I understand that there is some discussion about skipping the 
> CR implementation report gathering phase of the standards process 
> because there are already various implementation reports available. 
>  While this is true I believe this to be misguided given the 
> significant changes to the specification around property paths and 
> introduction of the VALUES clause.
>
> Particularly in the area of property paths many existing 
> implementation reports may be inaccurate (certainly dotNetRDF's is) 
> because the WG changed the expected results of the existing tests 
> rather than deprecating old tests and introducing new tests.  This 
> means the current implementation report on file for dotNetRDF has a 
> bunch of tests reported as passing (because they did under the old 
> semantics and test cases) which in reality no longer pass now my test 
> suite is updated to match the latest version of the WG test suite I.e. 
> The current percentage compliance is actually higher than reality. I 
> would like to see implementers given more time to actually implement 
> the upcoming changes (which you have yet to formally publish) and 
> report back comments on them as necessary rather than these changes be 
> presented as fait accompli and risk formal objections to the spec 
> delaying eventual standardization.

Hi Rob,

The WG will look at your entire message, but I just wanted to address 
this point. In the wake of recent substantial changes to the query 
specification (e.g. property paths counting semantics and the VALUES 
clause, as you mention), the WG will be publishing another Last Call 
Working Draft of the SPARQL 1.1 Query specification, as per W3C process. 
This will give several weeks for the WG to consider and address comments 
and questions from the user and implementer communities.

Before proceeding beyond Last Call (whether to Candidate Recommendation 
status or to Proposed Recommendation status, which the group is indeed 
considering), the group will approve and publish a complete test suite 
that reflects the final details of the query language. Before proceeding 
to Proposed Recommendation stage, the group will produce an up-to-date 
implementation report based on the final test suite.

Lee

>
> Rob