- From: Kirill Gavrylyuk <kirillg@microsoft.com>
- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 10:53:49 -0700
- To: "Dan Connolly" <connolly@w3.org>, <www-qa@w3.org>
- Cc: "Jim Hendler" <hendler@cs.umd.edu>
In some cases they are evil for interop, in some cases they actually help interop. Optional features are only one particular case of conformance flavors. Conformance flavors also include: - Alternative sets of choices (XSLT is an example) - Adjuncts that are not part of the core functionality (binding to lower layer protocols) In any case, they are a requirement for most of the specs, so we have to deal with them in the guidelines. XML is a special case, since it is the base spec for a wide range of industry standards. We could add a note: "Having multiple flavors of conformance may impact interoperability." -----Original Message----- From: Dan Connolly [mailto:connolly@w3.org] Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 7:18 PM To: www-qa@w3.org Cc: Dan Connolly; Jim Hendler Subject: levels/options considered harmful regarding: "Guideline 3. Specify flavors of conformance. " -- http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-qaframe-spec-20020515/ That guideline is presented as if different flavors of conformance have no downside whatsoever. I don't think that's the case. "flavors of conformance" are evil. They're the antithesis of interoperability. Note design goal 5 of XML: "The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero." -- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#sec-origin-goals I suggest that should be a design goal of all W3C specs. Please update qaframe accordingly. -- Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 13:54:31 UTC