- From: Marcos Caceres <marcosscaceres@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:41:17 +0200
- To: Bryan Sullivan <blsaws@gmail.com>
- Cc: Arthur Barstow <art.barstow@nokia.com>, Paddy Byers <paddy.byers@gmail.com>, public-webapps@w3.org, public-script-coord <public-script-coord@w3.org>
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Bryan Sullivan <blsaws@gmail.com> wrote: > I don't believe the concern is about changes to Web IDL breaking any running > code (is that possible in any case? Web IDL is just a specification > language...). > > But it could "break" specifications (affect them in a way that does impact > the code which implements them). Future versions of a spec that did have > modules defined would have to change to comply with a new Web IDL version > without modules. How would you propose that such a hypothetical new version > deal with this change? > > Take a simple example: the WAC 2.0 Accellerometer API: > http://specs.wacapps.net/2.0/jun2011/deviceapis/accelerometer.html > > The purpose of this question is to see if the actual impact of this change > (on specifications, and the related impacts on implementations) is clear. > > On the second point (a WAC extension for modules), how would that be > defined? E.g., "The Accelerometer API" and just remove "module" from the title and from the WebIDL. I don't think any spec in WAC references any other IDL in another module in the way that WebIDL defines... so there would be no impact. Like you said, it's mostly a specification language and most of these specifications are written in HTML... so just hyperlink to the API you want to use from another spec (i.e., what was once a module). It's common for specs to do this already (e.g., interface SomeNewEvent : Event {} ... where Event links to DOM Core's definition of an Event). > If WAC (and OMA) really needed such an extension, why would W3C > object to it being a part of the Web IDL spec (if it is not used in W3C > specs then fine, but the universe of Web API specifications is larger than > W3C...). I don't think anyone was "objecting" (particularly not "the W3C", which is just an innocent bystander); the question is if there is any value/use case for module and is anyone really using it beyond what could be done with prose? I personally don't see much use for modules... they are a nice grouping-thingy, but just seem to add more complexity. -- Marcos Caceres http://datadriven.com.au
Received on Friday, 12 August 2011 19:42:09 UTC