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