Re: [xml-dev] Requirements of the editor of a working group thatis devel

[John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>]

Frank Manola scripsit:

> However, do you know enough about all possible XML markup languages
> to recommend that each be implemented by one person?  Even if so, why
> does that one person have to be the Editor?  Depending on how the group
> divides up the work, the Editor may have so much "editorial" work that
> a better implementation might be produced by someone else on the team.

To look outside the XML/W3C box for a moment:  A new standard for the
programming language Scheme has just reached the final working draft
stage and is ready to be ratified (or not) by the Scheme Steering
Committee and the Scheme community.  The chair of the WG was also the
implementer of a sample implementation (not a reference implementation;
where it disagrees with the spec, the specs win) in addition to being
one of the three editors (I was another).  I believe this strategy was
overall a win, but I don't think it would have been much less of a win
if the implementer had been someone else instead.  (An implementation
from scratch was not required in this case, merely the enhancement of
any implementation that conformed to a previous standard.)

> Also, I'm not sure I want a single "reference implementation"?
> I prefer the W3C's idea of two (or more) interoperable implementations
> (by different people/groups).

That began with the IETF, whose principal domain of action is protocols.
It's not quite so imperative for language implementations, though
of course it's useful.  The implementation comes with a fair-sized
test suite, which will be essential in tracking conformance by other
implementations (Scheme has lots, 45 that I personally deal with for
standards purposes and probably at least as many more than I don't).

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