14:52:10 RRSAgent has joined #xproc 14:52:10 logging to http://www.w3.org/2012/01/19-xproc-irc 14:52:13 zakim, ??p2 is Norm 14:52:13 +Norm; got it 14:52:53 Meeting: XML Processing Model WG 14:52:53 Date: 19 January 2012 14:52:53 Agenda: http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2012/01/19-agenda 14:52:53 Meeting: 206 14:52:53 Chair: Norm 14:52:54 Scribe: Norm 14:52:56 ScribeNick: Norm 14:55:22 PGrosso has joined #xproc 14:58:30 +[IPcaller] 14:58:56 zakim, +[ipcaller is jfuller 14:58:56 sorry, Norm, I do not recognize a party named '+[ipcaller' 14:59:03 zakim, ipcaller is jfuller 14:59:03 +jfuller; got it 14:59:21 Vojtech has joined #xproc 15:00:21 jfuller has joined #xproc 15:00:41 +[ArborText] 15:00:42 alexmilowski has joined #xproc 15:01:02 http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/docs/xml-proc-profiles.html 15:01:47 +Alex_Milows 15:02:11 +Carine 15:02:11 +Vojtech 15:03:18 zakim, who's here? 15:03:18 On the phone I see Norm, jfuller, PGrosso, Alex_Milows, Vojtech, Carine 15:03:25 On IRC I see alexmilowski, jfuller, Vojtech, PGrosso, RRSAgent, Zakim, Norm, Liam, caribou 15:04:21 Present: Norm, Jim, Paul, Alex, Vojtech, Carine 15:04:41 Regrets: Mohamed 15:04:59 Topic: Accept this agenda? 15:04:59 -> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2012/01/19-agenda 15:05:04 Accepted. 15:05:08 Topic: Accept minutes from the previous meeting? 15:05:08 -> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/2012/01/05-minutes.html 15:05:12 Accepted. 15:05:17 Topic: Next meeting: telcon, 26 January 2012. 15:05:33 Jim gives regrets. 15:05:51 Topic: Processor profiles document 15:06:08 Norm: My apologies for not getting it published. 15:06:16 Norm: Paul gave some comments, I think they're all addressed. 15:06:23 -> http://www.w3.org/XML/XProc/docs/xml-proc-profiles.html 15:06:38 Norm: I've now dated it 24 January, with a comment period that ends 29 February. 15:07:06 Norm: V.next? 15:07:14 Topic: V.next? 15:07:23 -Norm 15:07:30 Uh... 15:07:43 did we lose people ? 15:07:48 just norm 15:07:53 zakim, passcoce? 15:07:53 I don't understand your question, Norm. 15:07:55 zakim, passcode? 15:07:55 the conference code is 97762 (tel:+1.617.761.6200 sip:zakim@voip.w3.org), Norm 15:08:04 +Norm 15:08:30 Norm: We're not getting a lot of discussion/progress. 15:09:08 Norm asks for help. 15:09:46 Jim: I've just gone through a cycle of intense XProc use. I'd like to give some observations. 15:09:56 ...I think what's good is that we've got something that's relatively consistent in V1. 15:10:19 ...Ports work, there's a set of standard steps, the XProc pipelines are highly reusable. 15:10:39 ...What's bad: XProc feels like middleware more than a standalone processor. 15:10:55 ...Sometimes I run away to xslt or xquery to get back to familiar terrain. 15:11:17 ...One of the biggest problems is the abstraction of working with sets of documents seems baked in at the wrong level. 15:11:41 ...Working with sets of documents seems difficult which is surprising. It almost seems like we need p:document*s*. 15:11:57 ...We've enumerated most of the speed bumps: values in variables, having to add p:empty to p:parameters. 15:12:09 ...I think the biggest thing is verbosity. We all know that options/variables/parameters are related. 15:12:19 ...The same sort of thing with iteration-source/viewport-source/xpath-context. 15:12:42 ...I don't know if we considered this: but it strikes me that we could have had one construct for p:for-each and p:viewport. 15:13:09 ...There are simple scenarios that are hard to do. For example, dealing with ZIP files is a lot of work. 15:13:33 ...I think we've missed a beat with respect to cross-platform issues. It's surprisingly easy to write a platform-specific pipeline. 15:13:51 ...When I step back, I'd like to talk about what V.next is. Are we fixing things, so that it's more amenable to being adopted? 15:13:55 ...Are we trying to expand its scope? 15:14:15 ...I think fundamentally, XProc being a data flow language, we're not leveraging everything we could in a data flow language. 15:14:43 ...Ultimately, the idea of how long the effort for V.next is interesting. 15:14:49 ...We can do things to make the language more adoptable. 15:14:59 ...That concludes that our V.next should be relatively short. 15:15:12 Norm: How long is a really good question? 15:16:37 ...Are we going to do something small an fast, or are we going to try to tackle bigger issues? 15:16:51 +Cornelia 15:17:15 Present: Norm, Jim, Paul, Alex, Vojtech, Carine, Cornelia 15:17:31 Alex: What about parameters, lots of folks say we messed that one up. 15:18:19 cornelia has joined #xproc 15:18:54 Norm: Even if we all think parameters suck, until someone comes up with a better proposal, I'm not sure what we can do about it. 15:21:00 Norm puts Cornelia on the spot about long or short time frame. 15:21:20 Cornelia: My instinct is the former. I think if we don't get uptake in the shorter time frame, the longer term issues are going to be moot. 15:21:55 Norm: Thanks. 15:22:19 Norm: I think I'm starting to hear consensus that one of the design goals for V.next should be that we get it finished quickly. 15:23:15 Alex: I wonder about the resource manager. If we're going to categorize small/big/large that resource manager is a big issue. 15:23:41 Jim: I think the resource manager is interesting. But we have to do it right. 15:24:13 Alex: I think we should focus on usability. Features like AVTs, additional steps, or additional options on existing steps. 15:24:28 ..."Easier to use" and "more inventory of cool things" that would be a win. 15:24:38 Jim: I think we can also double-down on steps published as notes. 15:25:00 Alex: We might also consider as a WG how we're going to handle steps. 15:26:10 Norm mumbles a bit about the issue of step management. 15:27:04 Jim: How would we do that? 15:27:08 Norm: I think we could group them together. 15:27:27 Vojtech: Then the question is, how large do we want to grow the inventory of p: steps. 15:27:33 Alex: Maybe we should categorize things. 15:27:48 ...We could start by categorizing the existing steps. 15:28:19 Norm: Vojtech, are you consered about having a large vocabulary of p: steps? 15:28:50 Vojtech: I think it was Michael Kay that was surprised that we had so many steps. We have things like p:rename and such (that could be implemented in XSLT or XQuery). 15:29:19 ...Having more steps is a greater opportunity to get things wrong. 15:29:30 ...It's more about having things done right than about adding things quickly. 15:29:51 Alex: It's like the XPath functions, they're in a separate spec. 15:30:03 Vojtech: Yes, we could have a separate document that enumerates all the steps. 15:30:16 Alex: Right. 15:30:46 ...The only thing is there that we'd have to some definition of the core steps. You'd want to have a minimum number of steps that every processor had to implement. 15:30:54 Jim: I think that's the significant issue. 15:31:24 Alex: If they're in categories, then you can organize them that way. 15:32:05 Cornelia: I think that's a great idea too. Consider Atom: there's the core format, then the publishing spec, then there are lots of RFCs for all kinds of extensions. 15:33:09 I think Notes have to apply to optional steps 15:33:20 Norm: I'm confused, I thought having separate specs for zip/unzip, file utilities, os utilities, etc. was exactly that model 15:33:35 Alex: Well, Notes don't have the same standing as Recommendations. 15:34:06 ...Atom is both an example and a counter-example. In order to use Atom, you have to go digging through all the possible extensions. 15:34:48 ...I don't think we want to have everything in Notes, nor do we want to have to manage lots of Recommendations. 15:34:59 Alex: Having a principle here would be good. 15:35:57 Norm: Yeah, we could have Recommendations for required steps and Notes for optional ones. 15:35:59 ...For example. 15:36:13 Alex: That's what the HTML5 folks have been doing, breaking out functionality into separate specs. 15:37:06 Vojtech: With XProc you could take it to the extreme and say that the language doesn't define any atomic steps at all. That'd be the complete language. 15:37:12 ...On top of that you could build standard libraries of steps. 15:37:26 ...You could have required and optional profiles. 15:38:31 Norm: I think I hear consensus growing for separating the spec into at least two parts. 15:38:55 Alex; Maybe we could try to take up some subgroups. 15:39:28 Norm: Alex, would you take a stab at categorizing the existing steps. 15:39:32 Alex: Sure. 15:40:25 ACTION: Alex to attempt to categorize the steps into a small number of groups. 15:40:39 Alex: My time between now and next week is pretty tight. 15:41:26 Norm: I wonder, Jim, if you'd look at a Note for zip/unzip, those seem very popular on xproc-de. 15:41:29 s/de./dev/ 15:41:34 Jim: Sure. 15:41:42 ACTION: Jim to start drafting a note for p:zip/p:unzip 15:41:59 Norm: So I think I heard consensus on two points. 15:42:24 ...1. Our focus for V.next will be on small items that we can accomplish quickly. 15:42:59 Accepted. 15:43:18 ACTION: Norm to attempt to enumerate the items currently on the wikis that are "low hanging fruit" for V.enxt 15:43:43 Norm: 2. We want to consider dividing the spec into at least two pieces: a core language spec and a step library sepc. 15:43:47 s/sepc/spec/ 15:44:15 Jim: I don't disagree, but I'm wondering about the timing. 15:44:42 ...Using energy and effort for that might mean other things don't get done. So maybe that's not the best thing. 15:45:09 ht has joined #xproc 15:45:14 Norm: Ok, we'll record the fact that people thought it was, in principle, a good idea, not that we're determined to do it. 15:45:52 ht, I'd think so. 15:46:17 Henry, yes please. You should weigh in on what we are discussing. 15:46:23 +??P8 15:48:20 Norm asks Henry about the plan to go quickly. 15:48:56 Henry: I'm reminded of Ashok's advice. If we don't really go quickly. If it takes us 9mo to a year to do a modest V.next, then we'll never get anyone to pay any attention again. 15:49:12 ...I don't know how strongly I feel about that, or about whether it applies to us. 15:50:28 Jim: Is 9 months really what it takes? 15:51:07 Some discussion of timing. 15:53:34 Alex: If we're really into doing this quickly, then we need a laundry list of usability items that we want to accomplish and the other is the step inventory. 15:55:24 Topic: Any other business? 15:56:08 Paul: Liam reported at the CG call that the new charter is going through the process. 15:56:14 ...It should happen by March. 15:56:50 Vojtech: There's a grand vision that Liam has about XProc/XSLT/XQuery coordinating. 15:56:57 ...that may also influence what we are doing. 15:57:34 Adjourned. 15:57:39 -Norm 15:57:40 -jfuller 15:57:41 -Vojtech 15:57:42 -Alex_Milows 15:57:42 -Cornelia 15:57:42 -PGrosso 15:57:43 rrsagent, set logs world-visible 15:57:43 -Carine 15:57:46 rrsagent, draft minutes 15:57:46 I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2012/01/19-xproc-minutes.html Norm 15:58:08 -ht 15:58:12 XML_PMWG()10:00AM has ended 15:58:14 Attendees were Norm, jfuller, PGrosso, Alex_Milows, Carine, Vojtech, Cornelia, ht 16:00:19 cornelia has left #xproc 16:06:35 PGrosso has left #xproc 16:55:52 ht has joined #xproc 17:14:43 Norm has joined #xproc 17:48:00 Zakim has left #xproc 17:54:15 norm, congrats on pubreq 17:54:28 thx 17:54:45 let me know when service.w3.org comes back online and I'll check the pubrules again :-P 17:55:06 "grand vision" - I've no plans (or intent) to force anything on anyone, just want to put people together & see if anything happens :-) 17:55:19 works for me 17:55:45 (and afaik ,pubrules is working) 18:02:36 ah, yes, back 18:06:34 Liam: fyi: pubrules is giving intermittent (but frequent) 502's 18:06:34 ht has joined #xproc 18:08:55 But I think it really is clean now. there was one broken link 18:09:33 I have forwarded note about 502s to the sysreq team channel 19:49:56 alexmilowski_ has joined #xproc