Re: [SVGMobile12] Conformance criteria

On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Chris Lilley wrote:
> 
> 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.

Oh I didn't mean to imply that. It's just that every statement, to be 
testable, has to be normatively traceable to a statement to the effect 
that an implementation has to act as described to be conformant. The 
definition of the word "MUST" does this, as does a statement like "to 
conform to this specification, user agents have to follow the following 
steps: 1. ... 2. ... 3. ...".


> 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.

I don't mean to imply anything. I said what I meant, no less and no more.


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

What I meant by "untestable" is that if a UA acts contrary to that 
statement, it's still technically compliant. There's nothing to test: UAs 
are going to be compliant whatever they do with respect to the statement.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 26 April 2005 22:07:15 UTC