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STAR Standards Chief Architect David Carver recently wrote a post about the W3C's use of a public issue tracker. A few people have "retweeted" the post and sent it my way via email. In the post, David gives kudos to the W3C for providing a publicly accessible issue tracker. I think the reason the post has some resonance is that at least a few readers recognize that the post is not so much about the use of about a particular feedback technology as it is about behavioral change within standards organizations and new ways of working. Actually, "new ways of working" isn't quite the right description. Between the lines, I think the post really is about bringing well-established and contemporary software development best practices to the work of standards organizations. If you read through David's other posts regarding the application of agile methodologies to standards development, they very much fit into this same theme.
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Roger Costello's latest, greatest tutorial covers the new features introduced in the W3C's XML Schema 1.1. I don't know if there is a market for a book on XML Schema 1.1, but if there is, Roger needs to find a publisher. There's an amazing amount of content in this power-point based tutorial.
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I've interacted with a wide variety of standards organizations over the years. Many of whom are trying to survive within the current economic recovery. It's hard to survive when your sole source of funding is on membership dues. It's also hard to recruit members when the perception is that it will take years for any changes to be made available to them.
Standard organizations in general are rightfully criticized for being slow moving organizations that by the time they react to change, the world has changed again, and business needs have changed. Implementers of standards can't wait for them to get changes out to them, so they go and extend the standard. Causing a splinter in implementations and possibly more harm than good.