Re: RDF Core test driven development and QA Test Doc

DM>> "Checkpoint 1.3. For each class of product the WG intends to
DM>>specify, determine and document the testing approach to be used for
DM>>its conformance test suite."

SH>Ah, but RDF Core chose to not define the products being tested,...

How did you demonstrate the existence of more than one conformant (and
presumably interoperable) implementations?

SH>WebOnt decided to define only some of the products...

This fits the way QAWG handles it. You don't need to define conformance
criteria for every product that may handle some aspect of what you
specify, just those that represent the realization of your goals. The
most common example is that many specs have some XML dialect but don't
impose any requirements on editors that compose the XML.

SH>I'm not sure their reasoning, but I'm fairly comfortable with it by
>analogy to HTML.  It makes sense to define the language and recognize
>full well that you don't know all the kinds of processors there might
>be for it.

My HTML analogy: you prove the interop by having several compatible
user agents (browsers), so the spec defines what the user agent must
do, in broad terms, when it is given a defined element (e.g., <a>).
HTML editors and other tools need not be addressed. If you don't try
to have various browser implementations do the "same" thing with an
<a> element, what was the point of specifying standard HTML? The
expectation of behavior of <a> was set by the WG.
.................David Marston

Received on Wednesday, 7 January 2004 12:02:32 UTC