Re: Extension/Extensibility examples in W3C Specifications

Hi Mark, Lynne,

Le mar 04/05/2004 à 16:47, Mark Skall a écrit :
> >Thanks for this clarification ; for what it's worth, this is probably
> >the first time I see "extension" used in this meaning
> 
> One more question.  Lynne and I have been looking at various W3C recs and 
> can not find the term "extensions" used in the generic way we're using 
> it.  Can you point us to some place where "extensions" are used in that way 
> and perhaps where it's defined. 

The W3C Glossary have only few matches on "extension":
http://www.w3.org/2003/glossary/keyword/All/?keywords=extension&include=def
including:
"SOAP feature: An extension of the SOAP messaging framework typically
associated with the exchange of messages between communicating SOAP
nodes."

Besides, using Google reveals much more matches in TR docs:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.w3.org%20inurl%3A%2FTR%2F%20extension
esp:
- PEP - an Extension Mechanism for HTTP
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-http-pep-971121 (see also
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/ietf-http-ext/ leading to
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2774.txt)

- XSLT 1.0 has an extensions framework:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xslt-19991116#extension
"XSLT allows two kinds of extension, extension elements and extension
functions. This version of XSLT does not provide a mechanism for
defining implementations of extensions"

- Component Extension (CX) API requirements Version 1.0
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-CX-20011211
has a glossary entry: "Component Extension:
        The term Component Extension (also well-known as plug-ins in Web
        browsers) refers to any software in charge of providing the
        client-side part of the Component Extension API. It is a program
        that runs as part of the Host implementation and that is not
        part of content."

- the somewhat older "PICSRules" Recommendation declares having "hooks
for expected future extensions to the PICSRules language to accommodate
signature verification."
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-PICSRules

- the WSDL 2.0 drafts have "Binding extension elements"
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-wsdl20-20031110/#Binding_extension_elements

>  One possibility Lynne and I discussed is 
> to just use "extensibility" and not use, or define, "extensions"

I think that extensibility is indeed a better term to describe what we
want to talk about in SpecGl ; that said, given that the term
"extensions" seems to give us troubles, it would be good to have the set
of definitions that the term "extension" covers, so as to reduce the
ambiguity later on.

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