A Touch of Class

f. rainne
2003-10-01

Reviewer at Small

Printed out CSS2.1 earlier this week. It's about 200 pages. I printed double-sided copies, with two pages to each side (That's four to a sheet.): The stack of paper is a full centimeter in height. (Yes, I measured it.) The minimal review period makes me wonder if the working group has gotten into the habit of rushing things.

I've only gotten to Chapter 2, but my pencil has justified the printing of every page so far. Copyediting CSS specs is so much fun! *grins* It's just amusing to see all the grammar mistakes. And slashing through entire paragraphs, scribbling "Rewrite" in the margin... Helps get me through analyzing the dry technicalness of the spec. ;P (Of course then I have to rewrite the paragraph myself, but such is life.)

Maybe I should get a job copyediting. :)

Oh, and looklooklooklooklooklook:

A technical report is returned to a Working Group for further work in either of the following situations:

  1. The Working Group makes substantive changes to the technical report at any time after a Last Call announcement and prior to Publication as a Recommendation, except when the changes involve the removal of features at risk identified in a Call for Implementations. In the case of substantive changes, the Working Group MUST republish the technical report as a Working Draft.

*smiles scarily* So next time they do something like rewriting an entire chapter of CSS3 Text between the last call working draft and the candidate recommendation, I can throw the book at them. I was furious for at least the whole week after they published that. Didn't post anything about it until much later, though—otherwise I'd likely have flamed the entire working group. Which would.. not.. have.. been.. good. Thinking about it still makes me mad. And I very rarely lose my temper.

Remember, a reviewer is not a friend. A good reviewer can feel like your worst enemy. Adapted from the Mozilla Code Reviewer's Guide