Implementation

In the process towards a recommendation, one of the things that supports a
document is interoperable implementations. To what extent do we need
implementation experience before the document becomes a recommendation, and
at what stage of the process?

Some thoughts...
Implementation is the surest way to test whether a reqirement is feasible (in
general - it may still be difficult to implement something within the
constraints of a particular piece of code, but in my opinion that is what
separates good and bad code, and is largely outside the scope of the group).

Partial implementations of the full guidelines can be a useful test - they
are much easier to fnd than a single implementation of everything, but they
need to be weighed carefully against one another.

A lot of the guidelines are already implemented. Are there checkpoints where
there is no implementation? Are these things which we know are useful, or are
reasonably certain will be?

How do we test for implementation? I suggest we look at producing some test
suites (I will write a separate thread about this).

Charles

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 2 September 1999 11:36:18 UTC