On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Rick Faircloth <[email protected]> wrote: > There has *got* to be a better way of progressing. Perhaps > we could just lock all the browser vendors into a room and > make them fight it out over what features will be developed > and in what order and not let them out until they've got > a reasonable, sane plan!
That's pretty exactly what the standards process involves and why it takes so long - see, you DO understand it, after all! :) :) When I was on the C++ Standards Committee (as a paying member of ANSI J16, as well as the usual representative from the BSI C++ Standards Committee on the ISO committee), there were about 200 or so paying members of the ANSI panel and I think 7-9 countries involved at the ISO level. Every vendor was represented (although Microsoft wasn't very cooperative throughout most of the eight years I was on the ANSI committee). We did a lot of our business throughout the year on a number of technical mailing lists and then we met as a committee face-to-face three times a year for a week each time, all around the world. Typical attendance at those meetings was 50-70 members of ANSI and up to a dozen ISO folks. ISO met Sunday evening to discuss progress and business and any general voting issues, then we had several General Sessions during the week for the ANSI and ISO committees to listen to reports, discuss items and vote (as two separate committees, BTW) on items. In between times, we broke into a number of technical working groups to hammer out the details of features and agree on approaches to bring to the full committee for voting. Some issues took YEARS to hammer out. Sometimes we'd vote on an issue, thinking we'd solved all the problems, only to have it raised again a year later because an implementor had uncovered a flaw in the specification. Even syntax issues sometimes took several meetings to figure out. We had three core language groups, two extensions groups, a library group (and I think they had subgroups) and a syntax group. They all worked solidly for days at each meeting and on and off between meetings to draft specifications for all aspects of the technology. We would also spend many hours editing approved changes into the standards document itself at each meeting so that a revised document could be presented for voting at the next meeting. I used to describe the meetings as being locked in a room with 50 of the world's most pedantic men for a week. Standardization is an incredibly painful process - for everyone involved. -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ "Perfection is the enemy of the good." -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:345725 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
