Introduction

• Some ideas are addressed to WG members
• Some ideas are addressed to the W3C Team (staff)
• Some require further elaboration
• Some are about process

Documentation ideas

• Write testable sentences in the Recommendations
• Use fine-grained tagging (IDs) of testable sentences
• Account for molecular cases when itemizing cases
• Organize discretionary items (possible required appendix)
• Organize all inter-document dependencies; refer by version number
• Expose well-defined (sub-)sets for other documents to reference
• GOAL: make the XML version of the document be normative

Expectations on Working Groups

• Get an outsider to review the understandability of your document
• Think about how test cases would be cataloged
• Think about how test cases would be machine-generated
• Test cases (and examples) should have "correct" output
• If you are going to accumulate test cases, establish how you'll accept them before they start coming in
• You should set interoperability expectations as early as possible

Ideas for W3C as a whole

• Adjust all these according to the "class" of Recommendation (processor, protocol, API, vocabulary, etc.)
• Apply an interoperability standard to "should" provisions
• Fill in between interoperability vision and uniform terminology with constellations relating several Recommendations
• Establish a scheme for registered cross-Recommendation dependencies (possibly resembling The QA Matrix)
• Establish standards for deprecation of provisions
• Establish a process where WG interpretations become available on a fast turnaround
• Improve the consistency of visibility of WG interactions with outsiders
• Establish a process for resolving interpretation disputes where the parties are vendors and also WG members
• If the W3C becomes a test case repository, set up full-power version control
• QA is not parallel to WAI and I18N!

External to W3C

• Non-WG-member Vendor implementation of PR is more valuable
• Likewise, non-WG-member attempt to write tests is more valuable
• Good white-box testing comes via Vendor's own code
• Complete test of "must" (an abstract conformance test) vs. thorough test of whole thing (more value to Builder)
• Independent test suites can be linked from The Cover Pages and XML.com if W3C has an "endorsement" issue
• Even a complete test catalog is difficult, without writing the cases