- From: Mark Skall <mark.skall@nist.gov>
- Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 10:19:58 -0400
- To: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>, Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Cc: www-qa@w3.org
> > > >I think the word *additional* is crucial - an extension which negates > >the base specification is not an extension but a change. Of course, > >quite what constitutes "negating" is domain dependent. > >I don't think so, changes make something ambiguous, you can infer >different things from the same thing prior and after the change, >even though the input remains the same. With an extension you have >different things where you naturally infer different things from. I agree with Jeremy. When we write specs and include the concept of extensions we say something like " the additional feature/function cannot contradict or cause the non-conformance to other features/functions in the spec." Although extensions affect interoperability they are a fact of life and we need to plan for them in a way that would minimize conformance and interoperability. If we let extensions "break" the other parts of the spec, we have chaos. Mark **************************************************************** Mark Skall Chief, Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division Information Technology Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8970 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8970 Voice: 301-975-3262 Fax: 301-590-9174 Email: skall@nist.gov ****************************************************************
Received on Wednesday, 5 May 2004 10:20:37 UTC