[Bug 3251] need for precisionDecimal

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=3251

           Summary: need for precisionDecimal
           Product: XML Schema
           Version: 1.1 only
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: Datatypes: XSD Part 2
        AssignedTo: cmsmcq@w3.org
        ReportedBy: mike@saxonica.com
         QAContact: www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org


This comment was *not* approved by QT, so I will make it as a personal comment,
in rather stronger language.

I do not believe that users are crying out for another numeric data type. I
think the requirement has been driven by vendors (or perhaps even by
individuals within vendors), and it's not clear what they think it will
achieve. It will certainly impose enormous implementation and transition costs
on the whole community, both vendors and users, and of course on the groups
responsible for other related specifications such as XPath, XQuery, and XSLT -
these are costs which threaten the success of XML Schema 1.1 as a
specification. 

There must be a better way of introducing a new primitive data type. It should
be possible for one vendor who thinks the requirement exists to provide this
data type, and for others to wait and see whether users take it up. This means
that rather than introducing a new primitive type, the WG should be introducing
an extensibility mechanism. Such a mechanism would allow extensions to be
introduced experimentally by vendors, and those that prove successful can then
find their way into the specification. The costs of introducing a new data type
speculatively (and making its implementation mandatory) are far too high.

Furthermore, there are lots of very clearly stated user requirements for
extensions to XML Schema in other areas (for example, co-occurrence
constraints). Providing a feature that no-one is asking for, while failing to
provide the features that users are demanding, will result in being perceived
as unresponsive to user requirements, which in turn puts at risk the continued
loyalty of the user community to this specification.

Received on Tuesday, 9 May 2006 11:08:15 UTC