BP2 (BP mobile web-apps) - some words related to scope.

Okay, so based on the various conversations and threads we've had these past
few weeks on the scope of the BP2 (BPMWA ?) document I've attempted to
redraft section 1.4 Scope.

Pasted below is a straw-man of some words that attempt to assimilate
everyone's ideas of what the scope of this document should be and address
the various grey-areas that have tripped us up previously. Apologies for the
short notice, but if possible I'd like to spend some time on tomorrow's call
to iterate on this section by way of helping us zero in on a common
understanding of the scope and direction of this document.

Thanks,

Adam.

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1.4 Scope

These recommendations follow in the footsteps of the Mobile Web Best
Practices (BP1), for which the scope was laid out in "Scope of Mobile Web
Best Practices" [Scope]. Where BP1 referred primarily to the extension of
web browsing onto mobile devices, this document further extends that scope
to consider the use of *web-applications* on mobile devices.

This document sets out a series of *best practices *that are intended to
help content creators develop and deliver great *web applications* in
the *mobile
context*.
1.4.1 Best Practices

The approach in writing this document has been to collate and present the
most relevant engineering practices prevalent in the development community
today and identify those that: a) facilitate the exploitation of modern
device capabilities to enable an optimal user-experience for mobile
web-applications; or b) are considered harmful and can have non-obvious
detrimental effects on the overall quality of your mobile web-application.

The goal of this document is not to invent or endorse future technologies.
However, there are a number of cases where explicitly omitting a
best-practice that referred to an emerging technology on the grounds that it
is too recent to have received wide adoption would have unnecessarily
excluded a valuable recommendation. As such, some best-practices have been
included on the grounds that we believe they *will become* fully qualified
best-practices (e.g. in prevalent use within the development community and
considered to have a positive impact on the overall quality of your
web-application) in the very near future.
1.4.2 Web Applications

For the purposes of this document, the term "web application" refers to a
web page (XHTML or a variant thereof + CSS) or collection of web pages
delivered over HTTP which use either server-side or client-side processing
(e.g. javascript) to provide an "application-like" experience within a
web-browser. Web applications are distinct from simple web content (the
focus of BP1) in that they include some elements of interactivity and
persistent state.

It should be noted that there are a number of emerging mobile technologies
that allow web-applications to be delivered in a more componentized or
gadget-like way, outside of a traditional browser [REFERENCES TO WEBLETS,
ETC]. Whilst many of the recommendations in this document remain relevant in
these contexts, no explicit effort has been made to adapt them for this
scenario on the grounds that there are as yet no convergent technologies or
practices for non-browser based web-applications. As such, the reader should
remain mindful of potential divergences from these recommendations when
dealing with web-applications delivered outside of a browser.
1.4.3 Mobile Context

In an increasingly mobilised world the line between mobile and non-mobile is
necessarily blurred and a document focussing solely on best-practices that
are *uniquely* mobile would most likely be very short. With this in mind,
the focus of this document is to address those aspects of web-application
development for which there are additional, non-trivial concerns associated
with the mobile context. This applies equally both to the limitations of the
mobile context (e.g. small screen, poor connectivity), and also the
additional scope and features that must be considered when developing for
the mobile context (e.g. device context / location, presence of personal
data on the device, etc).

Note that additional weight has been placed on those aspects of the mobile
context that are believed to be intrinsic and likely not to change in the
foreseeable future (e.g. limited input capabilities) as opposed to those
that are likely to disappear quickly as the technology evolves (e.g. limited
device processing capability).