Re: Submission & Review Policies

[David_Marston@lotus.com]

I think the draft of the Submission Policy gives way too negative a
characterization to molecular tests. What we don't want are tests that
have an uncoordinated assemblage of XSLT instructions. A true molecular
test exercises the interaction of more than one testable item, when the
spec makes it clear that those items interact. If we exclude these
"good" molecular tests, passing our suite will prove little because so
many bugs would be allowed through.

Here's a good (and classic) example. Consider these two separate
testable items from the XPath spec:
[21]OrExpr ::= AndExpr | OrExpr 'or' AndExpr
[22]AndExpr ::= EqualityExpr | AndExpr 'and' EqualityExpr
The molecular test where you evaluate
bool1 or bool2 and bool3
given bool1 and bool2 true but bool3 false is a good conformance test.
I say we want tests like that in our suite! (Correct answer: true)

The good molecular tests can be said to cover a single issue, but the
issue is a compound or contingent one: "What happens when you number by
counting a given pattern AND the pattern has a union, as patterns are
allowed to have?" One issue, but more than one assertion in the specs.
Is that okay with the rest of the Committee?
.................David Marston