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Re: Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is Web 2.

• To: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
• Subject: Re: Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is Web 2.0 the new XML?
• From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@g...>
• Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 01:16:05 +0200
• Cc: "XML Developers List" <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <1273.203.164.53.157.1124400701.squirrel@i...>
• References: <4301E192.40005@e...> <4301e5f3.387f4e70.7f22.ffffb133SMTPIN_ADDED@m...> <e3a5cb2c050816112910fc62c0@m...> <1273.203.164.53.157.1124400701.squirrel@i...>

* Rick Jelliffe wrote:
>1) Tough and regular layering review (e.g. by TAG?) to refactor the spec
>and groups as they grow.  XML Schemas is under-layered and large =
>spaghetti.

Many W3C Working Groups try very hard to minimize any
work in response to reviews. Good strategies here are

  * ignoring comments alltogether
  * waiting several months or years to get back to reviewers
  * adressing feedback by explaining things in mails but not
    updating deliverables as if only the very reviewer is too
    dumb to understand it in the first place
  * authoring documents such that they are inaccessible to
    large parts of the intended audience
  * maintaining comments-only mailing lists
  * moving important illustrations and clarifications to out
    of band deliverables such as primers and FAQs
  * making it impossible for reviewers to schedule reviews by
    maintaining impossible schedules about the working group's
    expected progress
  * using misleading maturity levels (Fourth Last Call, this
    time we /really/ mean it!)
  * infrequent publication

Some strategies are less common, for example, applying twisted logic
to the design process like developing a solution first and then trying
to find use cases that fit to the solution, or simply plain ignorance,
"Its our language and we can do that." So for any additional review to
be effective in practise, you would need to change how many Working
Groups think about reviews first.

It seems highly unlikely though that such additional review would come
from an organization inside W3C, they don't have resources for that;
for many working groups it's difficult enough to work on their own
deliverables.

>2) Maximum two-year membership of working groups (2 years on, 2 years
>off). This will encourage smaller specs and encourage fresh eyes on
>problems.

There are two problems here though, you would lose much expertise
after these two years and I'm afraid many W3C Activities have a
rather small pool of people who could work efficiently on specific
deliverables. Perhaps it would help in some isolated domains, but
that's becoming an exception as we are trying to combine past iso-
lated efforts.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@h... · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: +49(0)621/4309674 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
  • RE: Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is Web 2.0 the new XML?
    • From: "Michael Kay" <mike@s...>

• References:
  • Re: Is Web 2.0 the new XML?
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@e...>
  • Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is Web 2.0 the new XML?
    • From: Michael Champion <michaelc.champion@g...>
  • Re: Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: Is
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

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