[SpecGL Draft] E. Good Practice: Write sample code or tests.

Good Practice:
	Write sample code or tests.

What does that mean?
	For each feature, the WG might seek for early implementation 
demonstrating the feature. If early implementations are not available 
for different reasons (commercial constraints, IPR), it will be 
beneficial to write test cases to figure out the use cases of the 
technology and to create parts of a test suite.
	
Why should I care?
	When a technology is created, it is very tempting to add many 
features, because they really seem appealing or useful. Though defining 
a new feature doesn't mean that the model is easily implementable or 
implementable at all. By creating early partial implementation (code) 
and/or writing test cases, the WG is addressing part of the issues that 
a developer could meet during the implementation phase. 	WG will save 
time and resources because:
		- It will give examples to illustrate the specification
		- It will help to deal with issues resolution
		- it will help to have a pre-implementation report at CR phase.
		- It will help to create a complete Test Suite.		- It will encourage 
external implementations and therefore a more complete implementation 
report.

Related:
	CSS Test Guidelines
	RDF/OWL Method

Techniques:
	1. Try to associate developers to the Working Group progress (Open 
source or commercial)
	2. For each submitted feature, request from the WG Member, one or more 
test case demonstrating the use of this feature.
	3. Do not input the feature inside a specification before to have the 
associated test cases.
	4. Create a template to write feature for the specification which 
includes a test case section

Examples:

	RDF/OWL Jeremy Caroll?
	XMLP ? Yves Lafon?
	CSS editors are encouraged (required?) to provide tests with all new 
content.

-- 
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager
*** Be Strict To Be Cool ***