Nothing is perfect (and that is why we have QA)

From the W3 QA Blog

Nothing is perfect (and that is why we have QA) by Olivier

“The way a bug was found and fixed in the Feed Validator is not disturbing, I actually think it was an inspiring proof that all the aspects of its QA process worked:

1. There is a public feedback channel (several, indeed) for a problem to be reported to: Brian sent a message to the W3C QA mailing-list, asking whether someone could make sense of the problem he was facing
2. The tool is implementing public specifications: I was able to look at the RSS taxonomy module spec, and compare its prose with the implementation in the Feed validator
3. The validator is open source: 10 minutes of browsing around clear code was enough to find the issue, and create a patch, which was promptly reviewed and applied by Sam Ruby, one of the maintainers of the validator.
4. There is a test suite, to which I submitted a revised test case: now that the bug is fixed, we know that it will never appear again without being spotted automatically.

Time between original feedback and applied patch: about 24 hours.

There is nothing shocking about this bug, but the speed at which it was processed and fixed. Maybe that was lucky, I just happened to have a bit of time to look at the issue and the bug was easy to fix. Other, more complex bugs in tools that we (W3C’s QA Tools development effort) maintain are not so lucky, and indeed Brian is right in pointing out that we could use more help and resources to make our tools better. But I can not agree with his slightly provocative title that Validators Don’t Always Work. The Feed validator works, and so does its Quality Assurance process, as demonstrated in the prompt fixing of a small bug in its implementation of a faulty, not widely used specification.

Validators are extremely important tools for the adoption of technologies, and it is perfectly normal to be concerned about their quality. This is why finding bugs is good news, and the best use of one’s energy is not to worry about them, but to help find them, report them, patch them and build regression test cases for them.

Nothing and noone is perfect, that’s why we have QA.”

From Alice

This was a great example of how things have changed for the better and evolved over time at the W3C when handling issues and bugs but I would also like to stress that there was nothing wrong with the way otherÂbugs and issues were handled in the past.

Widgets 1.0 Requirements: Working Draft

Widgets 1.0 Requirements: Working Draft

From the W3C News

“The Web Application Formats Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Widgets 1.0 Requirements. These design goals are the requirements for device-independent standards for scripting, digitally signing, securing, packaging and deploying client-side Web applications (widgets). Also known as gadgets or modules, widgets are small programs like clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters that display and update remote data and run on the Web browser environment. Read about Rich Web Clients.”

They have a really great graphic on the W3C web site showing the inner workings of a widget, which is really cool.

Tim Berners-Lee Keynotes 3GSM World Congress

Tim Berners-Lee Keynotes 3GSM World Congress

From the W3C

“Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, opened the 3GSM World Congress on Monday 12 February in Barcelona, Spain with a keynote address at the Mobile Innovation Forum. Berners-Lee spoke on the role of innovation and openness in the Web’s success, and how the W3C Mobile Web Initiative brings mobile telephony into convergence with the Web and aids in bridging the digital divide.”

There could not have been a better way to open up this years event Tim did an excellent job, delivering his speech to a packed house.

Kind of Blue

Kind of BlueÂOlivier Threaux writes from the Quality Assurance BlogÂ

It’s fashion season! The ubiquitous “valid” icons, present at the bottom of about half a trillion Web pages in their signature “gold” color, now also come in W3C-ish blue.

In addition to the usual two raster image formats (PNG and GIF), the icons are now also available as vector graphics (SVG and EPS).

The full list can be browsed on the W3C QA website.

Great reads

After reading Tims blog I stoped by the W3 Quality Assurance blog to see what they had come up with for a multi user blogging platform and was surprised to see them using moveable type and not wordpress or drupal. Have had the chance to check out some of the ideas they were kicking around and some new tools and buttons they were showing off to relize everyone needs to be reading this stuff so I am blogging about it and rolling them on my blog so you can now find Tim Berners Lee and Dominique Hazal-Massieux on my roller.