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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: experts
 On 29 Mar 2001, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: > (Ok, Lauren; the cult of personality will now begin > to bronze your shoes....) Thanks for making me smile, Len. Good way to start the day ;-) Any committee has to have a mix of people - those who come up with crazy ideas, those who want to keep everything simple, and those who I call the "sanity checkers" who keep saying "I don't understand, can someone explain why this is important/necessary" and keep everyone thinking about just how important or necessary anything is. And then you need someone (usually called the chair) to ask when the editors will have the next version ready, or when someone else will have that sample code ready so we can see what he's talking about, or how soon we can make the draft public so the rest of the world can throw brickbats. Funnily enough, the rest of the world never throws brickbats at the things the WG thinks it will. Invited experts are those who show some understanding of the topics under discussion, and some willingness to participate in the discussion (by which I mean, also some willingness to listen to others), and the time to dedicate to following a discussion through. Finding these people can be as simple as seeing who posts to www-dom, or turns up at a BOF at a conference. One problem is that most WGs have too many members as it is; working with more than 20 people at any one time is really hard and some of these committees have 80. Committee work is hard, and getting harder. The specs are more complicated and trying to solve problems that weren't thought of 5 years ago. I think this process will continue for a while, but then we'll get some simplifying movements again. If the benefits are large enough, people will simplify. We learnt with HTML that one size can never fit all; we may need to learn it again with other specs. That's why the DOM went modular; if the DOM event model (for example) suits you and you need one, use it. If it doesn't meet your needs, extend it or don't implement it. Just remember to be open about what you do implement, or how you extend it. It always surprises me that so few specs out there use this sort of modular philosophy. There's my contribution to the philosophical discussion; I'll shut up now and let the rest of you continue ;-) Lauren 
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