Sunday, November 01, 2009

Talking to DC � Adam Bosworth’s Weblog

Notes on writing a good standard: "Well, the discussion was about what actually will work in terms of making health data liquid. What standards should be used for the integration of such data?

1. Keep the standard as simple and stupid as possible.
2. The data being exchanged should be human readable and easy to understand.
3. Standards work best when they are focused.
4. Standards should have precise encodings.
5. Always have real implementations that are actually being used as part of design of any standard.
6. Put in hysteresis for the unexpected.
7. Make the spec itself free, public on the web, and include lots of simple examples on the web site.
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