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Getting Your Head Around Standards CIS 373Web Standards Todd Will

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 2 of 33 Standards Organizations Where do they live? Websites? Head offices? What do they produce? Written specifications How much does it cost? Dues Publishing fees Who does the work? - Volunteers - Professional

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 3 of 33 Goals Why standards? WOSP analysis How to choose? Types of consortia Getting involved in the development process

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 4 of 33 Our Definition of Standards written specifications of methods, processes, technical requirements, or other guidelines agreed upon by some segment of the user community. Caveat: this definition leaves a lot of gray area as to what actually is a standard. Exact definitions are not as important as being able to apply the principles well discuss today.

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 5 of 33 Guiding Principles Your job: design, build, and maintain These activities require tradeoffs The best system is a working system >80% of system lifetime is maintenance How do standards support these principles?

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 6 of 33 The WOSP Model Uses the metaphor of a single-celled organism to build a framework for talking about the design and evaluation of information systems From: Whitworth, B., Fjermestad, J., and Mahinda, E. The Web of System Performance: A multi-goal model of information system performance. Communications of the ACM.

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 7 of 33 Tradeoffs in System Design Boundary To enable useful entry (extendibility) To deny harmful entry (security) Internal Structure To accommodate external change (flexibility) To accommodate internal change (reliability) Effector To maximize external effects (functionality) To minimize internal effort (usability) Receptor To enable meaning exchange (connectivity) To limit meaning exchange (privacy)

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 8 of 33 The WOSP Model usability reliability extendibility security flexibility privacy functionality connectivity

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 9 of 33 Environmental Pressures reliability extendibility security flexibility privacy connectivity usability functionality reliability extendibility security flexibility privacy connectivity usability functionality Low ThreatHigh Threat Emphasis on any one aspect may not improve overall performance. Rather, the total system performance adjusts to keep the system in balance.

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 10 of 33 Progress = Area Increase reliability extendibility security flexibility privacy connectivity usability functionality reliability extendibility security flexibility privacy connectivity usability functionality Combination breakthroughs are necessary in order for systems to advance. Low PerformanceHigh Performance

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 11 of 33 WOSP Analysis: Firefox vs. IE Extendibility Functionality Flexibility Connectivity Security Usability Reliability Privacy Given the WOSP framework, is Firefox a higher performance system than its primary competitor, Internet Explorer? A yes answer requires combination breakthroughsadvances in more than one of the below areas

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 12 of 33 Standards Role in Performance Standards support extendibility, e.g. XML based languages Web standards may also support other performance areas, e.g. Security: SSL Flexibility: CSS (media), XHTML (browsers) Usability: WCAG Connectivity: 802.11, TCP/IP Privacy: P3P

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 13 of 33 WOSP Implication Adopting standards can increase performance by helping you to design, build and maintain systems Having a rationale for why to use standards, we now need guidance in how to choose standards

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 14 of 33 Kinds of Choices Use standard or roll your own solution Between competing standards: e.g. PHP vs. ASP.Net Level of compliance: e.g. XHTML Transitional vs. XHTML Strict

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 15 of 33 Decision Criteria Maturity Stability Support Community Market share Time criticality Fit to: Design requirements Skill set of developers Interoperability Ownership Cost Strategic Value Consequences of Non-Adoption Capacity to Wage a Standards War

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 16 of 33 Maturity of Standards Mature Robust solution Full feature set Best practices Immature Error prone/buggy Features incomplete Sparse documentation

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 17 of 33 Stability of Standards Stable Dependable feature set Updates infrequent and announced Backwards compatibility addressed Unstable Frequent feature upgrades Announcement late or non-existent Upgrades frequently break current implementations

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 18 of 33 Support of Standards Supported Clear to whom bugs/change requests should be addressed Bugs/change requests dealt with in a timely manner Unsupported Unclear who is maintaining the standard Bugs may not ever be addressed

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 19 of 33 Standards Communities Healthy At least one major forum with an active user base Questions posted on a forum get response within one day Rich knowledge base Tutorials Unhealthy Forums may exist but dont have active users Many questions are posted but may not receive answers

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 20 of 33 Standards Market Share How widely is the standard used and/or implemented? What impact will implementation have on your companys market share? Prime Example: WCAG (Web content accessibility guidelines)

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 21 of 33 Time Criticality Time is Tight Standards-based solution may speed implementation, even if all needed functionality is not addressed, or Standard may be too complex to learn in a short time Time to Spare You may have time to roll your own solution or extend/modify an existing standard

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 22 of 33 Standards Fit Design Criteria Does the standard specification meet the needs of the current system design? How difficult is it to adapt our design to the standard, or the standard to our design? Developer Skill Set Do our programmers already know how to use the core technology, e.g. Java, or Do they have to learn something new from scratch? Is there an opportunity to extend our reach?

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 23 of 33 Interoperability Loose Coupling Using the standard does not lock in your other design choices Your solution can exchange data with solutions based on other standards Tight Coupling Using the standard requires you to commit to an entire suite of standards It may be difficult to exchange data with other systems (this may be a benefit!)

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 24 of 33 Ownership License agreements have HUGE implications for resulting systems Open Source Example: the GNU General Public License, aka the GPL Proprietary Example: WiFi Certification requires membership in the WiFi Alliance $15,000/year

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 25 of 33 Cost Implementation may come with a cost, e.g. the cost of Visual Studio.Net for developing ASP.Net solutions Could be a free solution, such as PHP and MySQL

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 26 of 33 Strategic Value Technology-based strategic advantage is extremely difficult to maintain in business because technology is easy to copy Frequently it is more advantageous to be second to market Microsofts strategy: embrace and extend Proprietary versions of open standards, e.g. MSHTML, MSXML Users enticed by added features get locked in to one companys solution

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 27 of 33 Consequences of Non-Adoption For many reasons (cost, strategy, skill base) you may decide NOT to use a given standard to implement a system You must consider the long-term consequences of this decision You may be able to skip a generation of technology at considerable savings You may put yourself so far behind the competition that you can never catch up

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 28 of 33 Capacity for Standards War A company, or group of companies develops a standard that is intentionally incompatible with that of a rival or group of rival companies Goal: win commanding market share Typically high stakes Expensive and risky, BUT Multiple solutions in the market frequently gives birth to technically superior hybrid standards in the future

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 29 of 33 Balancing the Criteria There is no hard and fast rule for balancing these many decision criteria when choosing standards Your job is to design, build, and maintain systems The best system is a working system Two recommendations: Stay up to date in your knowledge Dont be afraid to dive into something new

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 30 of 33 Types of Consortia Most standards development gets done by consortia Standards-setting consortia Ideally form before there is a pressing need for a given solution Strategic consortia Created specifically to compete with a rival company or group of companies Be aware of this when choosing to use a standard!

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 31 of 33 Getting Involved Volunteer Go to IETF meetings or join Working Groups Participate in forums Recommend to your organization that they join a consortium Ask for the assignment to represent your company at meetings

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 32 of 33 Conclusion Standards are vital to technological progress Web standards are constantly in flux and their volatility means you should be careful in their choice and use Keep your eyes and ears open and dont be afraid to get involved in setting new trends

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CIS 373---Web StandardsGetting Your Head Around Standards 33 of 33 For Next Time Read Zeldman chapters 5-6