[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?

• From: Mike Sokolov <sokolov@ifactory.com>
• To: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
• Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:45:09 -0500

How about: don't publish what you don't own?

Publishing schemas that include meaningless definitions has an analogue 
in software development, which is writing untestable code: ie code 
designed to handle a circumstance that has not yet occurred and may 
never occur.  It's always a bad idea.  Seems to be generated by people 
with clever ideas about future-proofing, but it seems as if we are wrong 
more often than not about where the future is headed.

One practical approach to dealing with this tendency is to insist that 
any schema definitions be backed up by requirements, functional 
specifications, sample data and use cases, together with tests to prove 
the data functions as intended in at least some dummy test environment.  
Just like real requirements! The proponents either pay the freight, if 
the feature is really deemed to be important, or it gets dropped as low 
priority.

-Mike


On 11/28/2011 04:11 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> cbullard@hiwaay.net scripsit:
>
>    
>> Don't make law you can't enforce.  Don't create requirements you cannot
>> prove are necessary to the consuming process.
>>      
> Well, that's fine if you know what the consuming process is, or at least what
> it expects.  But often you don't: you are publishing, and you don't know who
> will subscribe.
>
>    

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?
    • From: "Cox, Bruce" <Bruce.Cox@USPTO.GOV>
  • Re: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?
    • From: cbullard@hiwaay.net

• References:
  • Include data that may be objectively generated some day?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?
    • From: cbullard@hiwaay.net
  • Re: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?
    • From: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>