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Re: xPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 ... size increase over v1.0

• To: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>
• Subject: Re: xPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 ... size increase over v1.0
• From: Dennis Sosnoski <dms@s...>
• Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 12:51:10 -0700
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <6.0.0.9.0.20030620152341.025797f8@n...>
• References: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE022DC46A@h... om> <6.0.0.9.0.20030620152341.025797f8@n...>
• User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312

Jonathan Robie wrote:

>
>They are not reference implementations, they are sample implementations.
>
>...
>
>>>Are they tied normatively to the spec or informatively?
>>>      
>>>
>
>They are tied to the spec only as an existence proof, showing that the spec 
>can be implemented.
>
>Jonathan 
>
The weakness with this approach appears to be completeness. Someone can 
come forward with a partial implementation that covers most of the 
obvious stuff while ignoring the more complex issues, and unless those 
involved take a very hard look they're unlikely to realize that the 
implementation just papers over the cracks in the specification. At 
least one case comes to mind where this appears to have happened (WXS).

The JCP process used by Sun at least attempts to deal with this through 
the compatibility test kits required for each standard. This seems like 
a solid approach - if your implementation passes the test kit it really 
*is* an implementation of the standard, if it doesn't it's not. The 
standard authors should be required to certify that the test kit truly 
does represent a comprehensive test of the standard as a necessary 
precondition to the specification being made final.

  - Dennis

• References:
  • RE: xPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 ... size increase over v1.0
    • From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>

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