- From: Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>
- Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 08:24:05 -0600
- To: Lynne Rosenthal <lynne.rosenthal@nist.gov>, www-qa-wg@w3.org
- Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20030421155355.02884820@terminal.rockynet.com>
There are aspects of each definition -- Lynne's and David's -- that I like. Lynne's is pleasingly brief, but I think the characteristic that defines the "group of products" is too imprecise. "..that would implement the specification" doesn't really suggest what puts them in the same group. I like the notion of "role" that David introduces, although it needs some completion -- role in what, or role related to what? (something like "share a common role in conformance determinations", or "share a common role in interoperation scenarios of the specification's use cases," or ...). David's definition is, to my taste, a little too abstract. For the "4. Definitions", I would like something that is more "testable", i.e., easier to see if a given candidate CoP in fact qualifies as a CoP or not. So I'd prefer a hybrid (for "4. Definitions"), and maybe some of David's additional verbiage/examples might find a home in the new section 2.2? -Lofton. At 02:33 PM 4/19/03 -0400, Lynne Rosenthal wrote: >We need to add the definition of Class of Product to the Definitions. >Please let me know if you have a better definition than this one..... > >Class of Product: the generic name for the group of products that would >implement the specification, i.e., target of the specification. The class >of product is the object of the conformance claim. At 02:15 PM 4/20/03 -0400, david_marston@us.ibm.com wrote: >How about something like this? >Class of Product: a role envisioned by the spec. The spec could define >more than one role (e.g., client and server) while specifying the protocol >by which the roles interact, or it could define the behavior required of a >particular role (e.g., XQuery processor) and assume that other products >benefit when the instances of the target role (individual products) behave >interoperably. Continuing the XQuery example, notice that while the >products that fulfill the role may vary widely in their overall >characterization (e.g., standalone XQuery processor vs. data retrieval >middleware vs. various kinds of DBMS), the spec would only address their >behavior in fulfilling the role of an XQuery processor. In some >programming languages, we would say that the class of products "implements >an interface" so that other software can rely on a particular bundle of >capabilities being present. > >I think that the definition has to be careful to allow multiple classes of >product to fall into the genre of consumers of the output. In other words, >there can be specs that impose requirements for more than one CoP, but the >CoPs are all of the consumer genre. Similarly, a non-user agent might be >able to be both a client and a server at different times. The CoP >mechanism in the spec is used to define what any instance of the server >must do, and independently define what any instance of the client must do. >.................David Marston
Received on Tuesday, 22 April 2003 10:22:10 UTC