AW: [Mono-list] XmlTextReader: MS compatibility, or W3C conformance?

Atsushi Eno atsushi@ximian.com
Fri, 09 Jul 2004 22:03:22 +0900


Hello,

Thanks for your point of view.

> I could imagine that - if those bugs get reported to MS -
> Microsoft will fix some of them in a next version of the .NET
> framework. Till then, our highest priority should be to be 100%
> compatible to the MS .NET framework behaviour and not to any
> other standards.

Well, I have to disagree in some points:

	- With that "if", we cannot provide better solution than
	  Microsoft *at any time*. Also, to conform to that "if",
	  we have to make libraries vulnerable as well as Microsoft.

	  (That's extreme case? Yeah, but then we need certain lines.)

	  And if we just follow Microsoft, it won't fix any problems
	  in their libraries, since there is no better competitors.

	- Even if Microsoft fixes such problems, they will keep
	  old libraries lame, and thus "compatibility problem" will
	  remain there and in the next stage users will demand to
	  make .net 1.1 stuff as "compatible" with buggy old one.

Moreover,

	- We might lose some faithful developers that believes
	  standard is important (well, I have to say am apparently
	  such one of them that believes code is speech).

	- Anyways most of .NET developers are ignorant of what
	  breaks compatibility, by using "\" in path, using MSSQL
	  specific operations etc.

Well, I don't intend to reject all standard-negative opinion but
want to draw lines between MS compatibility and standard conformance.

I don't want to be a black sheep here, so many of the developers
believe that MS compatibility should take precedence at any time,
I'll post more complete "fix" and wait anyone apply to cvs. I'd
be glad to fix by myself if there is any rational reason.

Thanks,
Atsushi Eno