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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: "Clean Specs"
 > This group is notably and vocally dissatisfied with the specs, I > am watching with attention for concrete suggestions as to how > to make future specs better - the one premise that seems to get > consensus, in this group at least, is "more examples". (Hmm, the > namespace spec has tons). Your polite chastisement is quite warranted: many of us have been complaining about the specs without offering "concrete" suggestions for improvement. I had this in mind when I posted my part, but, you see, the problems do not lie in any particular pattern. Difficulties I have come across in trying to understand the specs have been quite varied. Sometimes it appears the specs rely on several assumptions that might have been well discussed within the WG, but never made it to "paper". The DOM spec often reads that way. At other times, given examples and "clarifying" appendices have instead caused confusion, as in the Namespaces spec. In yet other cases, there appear to be several distinct functions conflated into one spec, for instance, the XSL spec, which is subject of a long, current thread in the XSL list where a large majority favor splitting it into two specs: one concerning transformation and one formatting specs. In the general case, there are many frictions between the various specs: they tend to overlap in some areas, sometimes in conflicting ways, and they tend to leave gaps in other areas. Now some of this might be inveterate whining on the part of non WG members, but I am comforted in seeing that many other intelligent readers have run into the same walls as I have. Certainly, the WG had excellent reasons for making certain choices that were bound to be unpopular. The main problem appears to be lack of communication between the WGs and outsiders. The W3C is certainly not the most inscrutable standards organization I've seen, but considering its influence over the Internet, supposedly a medium characterized by open and loud communication, it can often appear to be some shadowy group dominated by a clutch of large vendors handing down inevitably imperfect specs to outsiders, but not giving the outsiders much say in the improvement of the documents. Yes, I know that the whole "release early/release often" model of the W3C's putting up a series of drafts before the final recommendation is designed to incorporate outside input, and I'm sure feed-back from places such as this group is considered, but there is precious little communication from the W3C, IMHO, as to why some feed-back, regardless of consensus, does not appear to reflect on subsequent documents. To give an example of an even more complex, long-running, and politically charged standards effort, I'll recall the development of the ANSI C++ standard. I followed the standard very closely until I got disenchanted with the language, and with all the problems with that effort, one thing was clear: the public was _very_ involved, and there were very visible effects of this involvement. Tim Bray and James Clark have been admirable ambassadors from the W3C for the WGs with which they are involved, but I haven't felt the same give-and-take from many other members. Most ANSI committe members for the C++ standard, people such as P.J. Plauger, Tom Plum, Dan Saks, and Stroustroup himself, were very highly and visibly involved with C++ developers. Many ideas from outsiders were incorporated throughout the process, and not just from big-nickel companies: if I remember rightly, auto_ptr came from a bright individual. Before the draft was solidified, there was a long period for public comment, and there was much discussion of the comments that were received. I may be biased, but I haven't felt the same level of openness from the W3C, and it seems to me that many of the peopblems that people complain of in the specs have been pointed out many times, and still re-appear in subsequent editions of specs without any visible consideration of the complaints. The W3C often gets press to the effect that it's a small clique massed around the persoanlity of Tim Berners-Lee. I highly doubt that extremity, from what I've observed of people like Tim Bray and James Clark, but I'm not sure the W3C is doing as much as it reasonably can to dispel the (literal) FUD that surrounds many of its efforts. -- Uche Ogbuji FourThought LLC, IT Consultants uche.ogbuji@f... (970)481-0805 Software engineering, project management, Intranets and Extranets http://FourThought.com http://OpenTechnology.org xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...) 
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