- From: Mark Skall <mark.skall@nist.gov>
- Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 14:13:12 -0400
- To: Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>
- Cc: www-qa@w3.org
My point was the following. You responded to the point that the new chapter will have a DOV caution by saying that you disagree that we should tone it down because "extensibility is #1 on my interoperability list of evils." The DOV caution (which I guess is the "toning down") applies to DOVs in general, not extensibility which is just one of the many DOVs. 10:54 AM 4/28/2003 -0600, Lofton Henderson wrote: >[switching thread to www-qa....] > >At 10:59 AM 4/28/03 -0400, Mark Skall wrote: > > > >>>>The new Concept chapter will have a DoV caution and we agreed(?) that >>>>each DoV would have a simple caution statement. >>> >>>I have made an alternate proposal, which has been linked from the issue >>>list for some time: >>> >>>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Apr/0026.html >>> >>>I disagree that we should "tone it down" -- extensibility is #1 on my >>>interoperability list of evils. >> >> >>Extensibility does not equal DOV. DOV has to do with variability. Every >>technique for variability does not "extend" the standard. Subsetting, >>for example, does not extend. rather it organizes things differently > >Hmmm, I'm not quite sure that I understand your point. Extensibility is >one of the (current) 8 DoV, and has been such since June 2002. From "4. >Definitions": > >dimensions of variability >the ways in which different products that are conformant to a >specification may vary among themselves. In this Specification Guidelines >document, the dimensions of variability are used to help organize, >classify and assess the conformance characteristics of W3C specifications > >Extensibility certainly fits as one of the ways in which conformant >products may vary amongst themselves. > >My original point was that, while acknowledging the reasons for which >specs allow extensibility, we should also keep strong caveats about the >consequences. In my (direct) experience, there have been few cases >(none?) in which there is not some interoperability downside, regardless >of how well justified the use of extensibility might be. If someone were >to offer an example (no interop downside), it would be interesting to include. > >In the balance, it may indeed be that the benefit of extensibility exceeds >the cost. > > > >-Lofton. **************************************************************** 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 Monday, 28 April 2003 14:18:21 UTC