• From: Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@a...>
• To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
• Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2016 00:36:44 +1100

There are two quite different issues?

What is the best size and layering etc for a standard technology; and what is the best for the standard document? (People all the time conflate the technology with the document IMHO.)

(But you would expect the size of the standard document would to some extent need to reflect the size of the techology. )

But apart from that everything will have its own rules: looking for general principles is well and fine as long as the abstraction doesnt then become unprovable dogma that prevents advance.

Actually i think xml/xpath might be quite rare in having the standards document lead the technology, rather than being a QA on the technology being pushed or instigated by vendors and dictators-for-life.

I dont think it is necessarily a bad thing if a standard has known gaps or clear limitations or TBDs. Should ODF have been held up until it had a spreadsheet formula language? Of course not.

But if a formal standard process is above all a QA on the documentation for a technology, what it would bring to JSON is not necessarily fixes for the edge-case problems, or the addition of comments, even though committees love tinkering, but we might expect it should be a clearer list of those edgecases and short comings, and standard ways to ameliorate them.

Regards
Rick

• References:
  • Many small standards versus one, large standard?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>