RE: [xml-dev] OOXML: So what *should* happen now?

[Jim Melton <jim.melton@acm.org>]

Or perhaps most people were somewhat intimidated by the prospect of 
(thoroughly) reviewing a 6,000 page document.  To put this in 
perspective for those who know SQL's size and complexity, the sum of 
all nine parts of SQL is about 3950 pages.  A ballot on SQL 
frequently receives several thousand comments, and we've been 
balloting versions of SQL for 20 years!

In fact, virtually every large spec I've ever had the "pleasure" to 
review leads to "thread-pulling", in which every page yields at least 
"one more" bug, and following up on that one leads to more, and 
following up on those leads to still more, etc.  I would personally 
be stunned if 30 dedicated, knowledgeable reviewers of a 6,000 page 
spec on its first public review were unable to find at least 3,000 
unique significant problems and at least 40,000 minor and editorial 
problems.  But that's just me...

Just one more perspective,
    Jim


At 9/6/2007 04:33 PM, Michael Kay wrote:
> > The task of addressing all ten thousand or so ISO-member
> > comments, even after removing dupes, and dealing with the
> > callouts to unspecified product behavior, and so on, with no
> > assurance that doing so would result in ISO blessing, seems
> > just insanely expensive and difficult to me.
>
>Actually, 10,000 comments on a 6,000 page spec doesn't sound like a large
>number to me. If I had less than two comments per page on a book or spec I
>had submitted for technical review, I would be concerned that the review
>wasn't thorough enough. Perhaps people were holding back because they don't
>want to provide MS with a free QA service.
>
>Michael Kay
>http://www.saxonica.com/

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Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL)     Phone: +1.801.942.0144
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