A User's Opinion
Richard_J_McWaters@ccmail.ed.ray.com
Tue, 9 May 95 15:30:44 EDT
This has been a very active mailing list lately, but very
unproductive. There are a lot of issues outstanding, and the list is
growing, because none of them come to conclusion.
In the opinion of a "poor simple country user", the spec is reaching
total paralysis. The latest suggestions are to take the discussions
to other groups, limit discussion, etc. Without some way to resolve
issues, this standards WG is going to fulfill the prediction that
standard societies never seem to accomplish anything. If this was
production software, we would all be broke by now!
The discussions seem to take the form of pointing to very specific
part of various specs, but loose the reason for why a feature is
needed. For instance, the multi-language capability discussion has
gone on about ISO this and ISO that without spelling out what is
needed. Is the intent to mix languages in the same
document/page/paragraph/sentence? Are the tags supposed to be
multi-lingual? Is there no browsers or servers out there that support
this?
If we look at the browsers, they are far ahead of the spec. They have
to sell their software so that they are incorporating features that
have not been resolved in the spec (tables, Japanese character
support, "wallpaper", etc.). With the current progress, the gap will
increase, and "de-facto" standards will be the only ones in effect.
In my opinion, the 2.0 spec should be closed and sent out for review,
PERIOD! The 2.X specs should be on single issues only as set by the
chair, and discussion should be limited to that topic only until it is
resolved. Other topics should be introduced as RFCs and then
scheduled for discussion (thanks to Stuart for the recent posting on
this). Please listen to Dan in providing clear, concise and
constructive discussion. Above all, lets get moving on productive and
doable "chunks" of this very useful set of information.
Ric "climing into my flame suit" McWaters
These are my opinions, not my companies.