RE: New issue: error recovery practices (Re: Proposed TAG Finding : Internet Media Type registration, consistency of use)

From: Al Gilman [mailto:asgilman@iamdigex.net]

[general agreement]

At 11:44 AM 2002-05-30, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

>>- getCEO service that addresses the complaint where it belongs, not to the webmaster.

>Not centrally determined, to be sure; but not all locally determined.  A healthy market will exhibit competition in this 
>regard between 'local' services configured and served locally from the base service provider and 'network-based' consumer 
>advocate services.

I'm not sure what that means.  Probably best to take it offline. 

>The W3C has the opportunity to "lead, follow or get out of the way" as far as the shape these feedback loops take.  It is 
>important for the TAG to recognize the wisdom of staying out of the way.  Maybe this is a "not just yes, but H___, yes!" to >what you said.

The TAG and the W3C should stay focused on the enabling technologies.  Error messaging is an enabler. 
The means to provide the errors, thus to enable the loops, can be of concern to the W3C.  But there are 
so many levels, semantics, different market customers and use scenarios possible, it is hard to conceive 
an overall solution that is more than general advice except in very specific protocols with very specific 
methods (eg, HTTP), and very specific application languages (eg, SVG).

I could understand advice issued to language WGs about the task to include error messages, their form 
and format, etc. as part of their charter.  Beyond that, I'm not sure what actions are needed.  It 
may be that more examples of the problems this issue would address are needed to gain clarity.

len

Received on Thursday, 30 May 2002 14:16:33 UTC