- From: Marcos Caceres <m.caceres@qut.edu.au>
- Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 14:54:17 +1000
- To: bert@w3.org, "WAF WG (public)" <public-appformats@w3.org>
This is a response to Bert Bos' review [1] of the Widgets 1.0 Requirements document [2]. > COMMENT 7) The Java VM seems to be a "host runtime environment" under > this definition and yet it is not mentioned anywhere. I have the > impression that the authors of the WD feel that Java programs and Java > applets are not widgets. Is that true? And if so, shouldn't it be made > explicit why that is so? Not true – if a Java applet was packaged to conform with the Widget 1.0 specification then that Java applet would be a conforming widget. The same holds true for Flash files,.exe files, or any other binary format. Secondly, we agree that a Java VM is more than capable of running a widget (hence, you can of course create a widget engine on top of the Java VM) and we feel that there is little distinction between widget engines implemented in Java or any other language. We will try to make this clearer in the specs. As an aside, you raise a point that we seem to be continuously encountering: that is, what exactly is a widget? In technical terms, the widget specification will probably define a widget as a packaged collection of files that may include an optional manifest file capable of being extracted and instantiated on a widget engine. The definition itself does not speak of functionality/experience afforded by a widget. I guess widget engine is any software capable of extracting, processing, and presenting a conforming widget package. We don't expect our definition of a widget to match a user's experience or definition of a widget. -- Marcos Caceres http://datadriven.com.au [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-appformats/2007Feb/0131.html [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-widgets-reqs-20070209/
Received on Wednesday, 2 May 2007 04:54:27 UTC