Introduction
- Some ideas are addressed to WG members
- Some ideas are addressed to the W3C Team (staff)
- Some require further elaboration
- Some are about process
Documentation ideas
- Write testable sentences in the Recommendations
- Use fine-grained tagging (IDs) of testable sentences
- Account for molecular cases when itemizing cases
- Organize discretionary items (possible required appendix)
- Organize all inter-document dependencies; refer by version number
- Expose well-defined (sub-)sets for other documents to reference
- GOAL: make the XML version of the document be normative
Expectations on Working Groups
- Get an outsider to review the understandability of your document
- Think about how test cases would be cataloged
- Think about how test cases would be machine-generated
- Test cases (and examples) should have "correct" output
- If you are going to accumulate test cases, establish how you'll
accept them before they start coming in
- You should set interoperability expectations as early as possible
Ideas for W3C as a whole
- Adjust all these according to the "class" of Recommendation
(processor, protocol, API, vocabulary, etc.)
- Apply an interoperability standard to "should" provisions
- Fill in between interoperability vision and uniform terminology with
constellations relating several Recommendations
- Establish a scheme for registered cross-Recommendation dependencies
(possibly resembling The QA Matrix)
- Establish standards for deprecation of provisions
- Establish a process where WG interpretations become available on a fast turnaround
- Improve the consistency of visibility of WG interactions with outsiders
- Establish a process for resolving interpretation disputes where the
parties are vendors and also WG members
- If the W3C becomes a test case repository, set up full-power version control
- QA is not parallel to WAI and I18N!
External to W3C
- Non-WG-member Vendor implementation of PR is more valuable
- Likewise, non-WG-member attempt to write tests is more valuable
- Good white-box testing comes via Vendor's own code
- Complete test of "must" (an abstract conformance test)
vs. thorough test of whole thing (more value to Builder)
- Independent test suites can be linked from The Cover Pages and XML.com
if W3C has an "endorsement" issue
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- Even a complete test catalog is difficult, without writing the cases