[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] a standards story
Sometimes I find things outside the XML world that seem to have messages worth considering. ------------------------- Work was done on the approach over a period of some three years, but it fell apart. A document was produced, getting gradually more and more complex as additional (pretty ad hoc) rules were added concerning what could and could not be deleted from a BER encoding, and went for international ballot. An editing meeting was convened just outside New York (around 1990), and the comments from National Bodies were faxed to participants only at the start of the meeting. Imagine the consternation when the dozen or so participants realized that EVERY National Body had voted "NO", and, moreover, with NO constructive comments! The approach was seen as too complex, too ad hoc, and (because it still left everything requiring an integral number of octets) insufficient to produce efficient encodings of things like "SEQUENCE OF BOOLEAN". It was quite clearly dead in the water. Many people had prebooked flights that could not be changed without considerable expense, but it was clear that what had been planned as a week-long meeting was over. The meeting broke early at about 11am for lunch (and eventually reconvened late at 4pm). Over the lunch-break much beer was consumed, and the proverbial back-of-a-cigarette pack recorded the discussions (actually, I think it was a paper napkin - long since lost!). PER as we know it today was born! The rest of that week put some flesh on the bones, and the next two years produced the final text for what was eventually accepted as the PER specification. Implementation of tools supporting it came a year or so later. (from John Larmouth's excellent _ASN.1 Complete_ (Morgan-Kaufmann, 1999, page 287.) ---------------------------------- Just something to think about as we consider the nature of standards development today. -- Simon St.Laurent Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets Errors, errors, all fall down! http://simonstl.com
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|