IRC log of xproc on 2012-01-19

Timestamps are in UTC.

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