[SpecGL] C1: Define your terms, pcpl 2

Here comes a draft for the second principle in section C1.

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Principle: Create conformance designations for each part of the
conformance model

What does this mean?
Most specifications define different forms of conformance,  e.g. a
language often defines conformance for a parser and for a document.
Associate well-defined labels to these forms of conformance (like a
<q>well-formed XML document</q>).

Why care?
Having a label associated to your conformance forms helps both in terms
of interoperability, as implementors can better identify what types of
implementation they have been developing, and in terms of branding,
since having a unique way to refer to the conforming implementations
makes it easier to publicize the specification behind them.

Technique
Review all the different forms of conformance in your specification
(ideally, they should be listed in the conformance clause), and make
sure they have an associated designation.

Examples:
- XML 1.O defines a well-formed XML document, a valid XML document
- WCAG 1.0 defines a level A conformant document
- SVG 1.1 defines "conforming svg document fragments", "conforming
interpreters", "conforming viewers"

-- 
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
W3C/ERCIM
mailto:dom@w3.org

Received on Monday, 26 July 2004 09:48:15 UTC