RE: [xml-dev] Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: [xml-dev] Is Web 2.0 the new XML?

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

My perspective as former PM for XML Schema technologies at MSFT 
 - No requirement for implementations of features to exist before going
to REC 
 - Contradictary design goals (datatyping vs. validation) 
 - Spec written in obtuse language that only an anti-social academic
could love

The lack of existence of a formalism was not really a factor as far as I
remember. 

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They say that 74% of the Earth is covered by water and the rest is
covered by mortgages. 

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Champion [mailto:michaelc.champion@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 11:30 AM
> To: XML Developers List
> Subject: [xml-dev] Avoding a repeat of W3C XSD - was Re: 
> [xml-dev] Is Web 2.0 the new XML?
> 
> On 8/16/05, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> > > No. We need XML Schema so that other WGs know what not to do.
> > 
> > OK, so what exactly did they do wrong, and how can other WGs avoid 
> > doing the same?
> 
> That seems like a useful question to ask, especially since 
> W3C seems to be trying hard to learn from what XSD and some 
> WGs did wrong.
> 
> My strawman list would start with:
> - Trying to do too much at once with a single spec. There's 
> some famous quote along the lines of "all successful complex 
> applications were once successful simple applications" that 
> we should all probably ponder daily. I wish I could find it 
> ... it probably came from Sean
> :-)
> - Not having a rigorous testing process in place BEFORE 
> Recommendation (the W3C "Candidate Recommendation" phase and 
> other process changes address this)
> - Not appreciating that the formalism has to come first (as 
> RELAX NG was built on the hedge automata formalism) to be of 
> real benefit. 
> (XQuery at least tried do this in parallel, with some success)
> 
> There's also the uber-problem that all WGs have, which is 
> that the consensus process makes it much easier to add stuff 
> than remove stuff.
>  I don't know how to address that, but as I recall the Schema WG
> *explicitly* made it hard to remove features once they had 
> been agreed to.
> 
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