Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] xml.com article

"Dave Pawson" <>
wrote on 06/10/2008 01:29:25 PM:

> http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/06/

> odf_conformance_testing.html?CMP=OTC-TY3388567169&ATT=ODF+Conformance+Testing

> 

It is an interesting idea, having an ODF application
support a rendering mode that "renders" to a well-defined markup
(sounding a lot like a metafile at this point) and then to define conformance
based on validation and assertion testing of the emitted markup.  Essentially
you take the structure/styles/metadata of ODF and render it into a pure
presentation markup and then test that presentation markup.

The challenge here is that there is no guarantee that
the application actually renders things to the screen the same way that
it renders to the metafile.  Each renderer could have its own unique
implementation bugs.  So at some point you need a test suite and validator
for the presentation markup as well.  And how do you test that?  You
need human eyeballs in the loop, otherwise you find that it is turtles
all the way down!

-Rob