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On Wed, 7 May 2003 22:17:28 +0100, Michael Kay <michael.h.kay@ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> There are plenty of areas in these specs that would really benefit from
> detailed review and feedback, but saying "I think I could design a
> better language" is not helpful at this stage.
Right. But how about "I don't want to have to deal with all 40-odd XSDL
types in my implementation, please change the Basic conformance level"?
That seems to this outsider like a constructive suggestion, especially
given the widespread, uhh, shall we say "lack of enthusiasm" for the XSDL
type system (that Amy so brilliantly expounds upon).
Also, [definitely not wearing my Day Job hat, Dr. Kay gets paid to think
about XPath/Xquery for our employer!] "alternative futures that we would
prefer" is EXACTLY the question that the W3C Powers that Be are supposed to
wrestle with before issuing a Recommendation, and they need input from the
community as to whether a draft spec fits their needs or not. The Powers
that Be don't pay attention to comments that a WG didn't have a chance to
consider. So, bottom line, for better or worse, if one wants TimBL and the
TAG to listen to a fundamental criticism about a spec, "unconstructive"
though it may be, one must annoy the WG on their comments list and be
prepared for a "we considered and rejected your suggestion" response, and
then refuse to accept the "resolution" so that the issue must be tracked
all the way to the Director so that he can review it before approving the
Proposed Recommendation. [Someone correct me if I'm wrong about the
process here, and it may be only W3C members that get to "lie down in the
road" like this.]
This little dance is no fun for the chairs, editors, etc. but actually
quite enlightening in the long run. But [now I'm definitely not wearing my
Web Services Architecture hat!] witness my correpondence on www-ws-arch
over the last year with Mark Baker, who makes it very clear that his
objective is to see that our WG never gets to Recommendation status with
anything that blesses current industry practice; as much as that sometimes
drives me crazy, it's also been extremely educational and has forced the WG
to come to grips with what the critics are saying ).
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