Re: [SVGMobile12] Conformance criteria

On Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 11:35:08 PM, Ian wrote:


IH> On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Chris Lilley wrote:
>> 
>> If these are not specified, the default values of 100% are used.
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> If these are not specified, the default values of 100% must be used.

IH> The former is a statement of fact, the second is a conformance criteria.
IH> Which should be used depends on whether that part of the spec is 
IH> attempting to describe behaviour (e.g. because it is a tutorial section)
IH> or is attempting to state what user agents are supposed to do.

IH> Or to put it another way: The latter is something you have to test before
IH> you exit CR, the former is meaningless unless you have some text elsewhere
IH> that promotes it to spec status (but I did not see any such text when
IH> perusing the new conformance section D.2).

IH> Which is all to say that actually you don't really have a choice, it has
IH> to be the second of the above.

Right. I thnk the second of the two is better also.

IH> In general I would recommend going through the SVG 1.2 spec with a
IH> fine tooth comb making sure conformance criteria are actually
IH> conformance criteria. At the moment, much of the spec is actually
IH> untestable due to poor phraseology. For example, "A value of zero
IH> disables rendering of the element" is not technically testable, as
IH> it is not strictly a conformance criteria; at least not per section
IH> D.2 as I understand it.

I see your point, although I think that 'every sentence which does not
contain the word 'must' is not testable' goes too far. Also, you seem to
imply that only the part of the spec in the conformance appendix s
testable, which I suspect is not what you meant.

We do in fact have a test for the value of zero in the forthcoming test
suite already.

-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris@w3.org
 Chair, W3C SVG Working Group
 W3C Graphics Activity Lead

Received on Tuesday, 26 April 2005 21:47:06 UTC