RE: Web Philosophy

[Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@ebt.com>]

> At 08:55 AM 3/27/01 -0500, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
> >Kind of like somone saying "I want to start a working group
> >to define the canonical use of milk". One person want to
> >make cheese, the other, casein.
> 
> I think OASIS lets you split off and set up competing working groups to 
> handle cases like this.  Both groups could then develop different specs, 
> and publish them.  That goes against the very spirit of the word 
> 'canonical', but since both cheese and casein are useful...

Right. In this I think OASIS is probably right. 

I'm very much a fan of "the right tool for the job" philosophy,
so I see no problem in having multiple specifications in a given
domain, if that is the best approach. I think schemas are a great
example of where, depending on the application domain, one might
choose to use one form of validation over another.

FWIW. I will say that the DOM had *huge* conflicts as well, and
in retrospect, it amazes me that the DOM 1 specification came 
out as well as it did. I think this is a tribute to Lauren Wood,
the chair, and to the people on the working group that were
willing to compromise enough for consensus, but not enough to
totally pollute it.