Re: Should SpecGL be a spec?

Lynne,

At 03:45 PM 9/5/02 -0400, Lynne Rosenthal wrote:
>I agree that some of the DoV discussion should be removed to another 
>document.  One thought I had was that it could be put into a white 
>paper.  Also, I think that as we revisit the SpecGL and as we develop its 
>companion Examples and Techniques document, much of the explanation text 
>and examples will be moved into the ExTech document.

Question.  To clarify, by "some of the DoV discussion", do you specifically 
mean SpecGL sec 1.5 [1]?  Or DoV discussion throughout?  (Or do you mean 
what Alex is referring to his last paragraph below -- in order to be 
self-conforming, how much does SpecGL need to address its own DoV?  Are 
some of the enumerated DoV out-of-scope or n/a for a spec of this type?)
.
I may be misunderstanding, but I'm not sure that I'd agree with moving the 
DoV discussion.  We need to recall how we got here and why.

In the 20020515 SpecGL WD [1], we had some vague statements about "flavors 
of conformance", and it raised some discussion on this list that flavors 
are evil (my paraphrase), and that SpecGL needs to discourage unnecessary 
variations and flavors.  Before we could even argue the issue about the 
latter, we needed to clarify what we meant by "flavors".

DoV is how we are trying to organize the discussion of flavors -- the DoV 
are the underpinnings of the flavors, if you will.  DoV are how we are 
trying to highlight at least some of the key variables that should be 
considered by specifications.  No, we won't hit all possible variables, but 
I think we have captured a good bit of current W3C practice (as well as ISO 
and other venues) in the current factorization.

The usefulness of the DoV as an organizing concept for SpecGL is a key 
issue that we are putting out for discussion with this working draft.

-Lofton.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-qaframe-spec-20020826/#b2b3b3d135
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-qaframe-spec-20020515/

>At 02:10 PM 9/5/02, Alex Rousskov wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Lofton Henderson wrote:
>>
>> > I think we (QAWG and authors) agree completely, practice what we
>> > preach.  We are aware that this (2nd published) WD falls short in a
>> > number of ways.  You have pointed out a number of issues that fall
>> > in this category.  SpecGL will certainly be conforming by Last Call
>> > (anticipated:  1-Feb-2003) -- I can't imagine that we'd have the
>> > nerve to put out a document with our names on it otherwise!
>>
>>Great!
>>
>> > As an exercise, one of the QAWG members will be measuring SpecGL
>> > against itself.  This may happen against this draft, or against the
>> > next published draft (anticipated:  1-nov-2002), or both.
>>
>>Measuring is good, though the result of such an exercise is already
>>known: SpecGL is not SpecGL-compliant, at any level.  To become
>>self-compliant, SpecGL would probably need to be restructured and
>>rewritten in a major way (IMO). I would recommend that the exercise is
>>given the highest (priority 1?) priority and that already-known core
>>issues are discussed before they are written up in the revised spec.
>>
>>It should be possible, for example, to decide whether a huge DoV
>>section is needed before [re]writing that section. Similarly, it
>>should be possible to decide whether behavioral specs should be
>>covered before spending time on an exact scope wording. Same for
>>encouraging non-normative illustrations. Etc., etc.
>>
>>Thank you,
>>
>>Alex.
>>
>>--
>>                             | HTTP performance - Web Polygraph benchmark
>>www.measurement-factory.com | HTTP compliance+ - Co-Advisor test suite
>>                             | all of the above - PolyBox appliance

Received on Thursday, 5 September 2002 19:59:34 UTC