Infoset consistency between versions

This is question that probably can be answered in this forum without
needing any TAG discussion: it may be that there are some W3C guidelines
in place, in which case I apologise for my ignorance.

Some W3C recommendation, let us call it "X", has an associated
infoset, and "X" and its infoset are used as the building blocks for many
subsequent specifications.  (I guess X could be HTML, XML, XPath
or WXS at the moment, but of course I am primarily thinking of XML 1.0.)

Let us make a distinction between classes of infoset items and the rules
for parsing and deriving an infoset.  It seems to me that the rules
for parsing and deriving an infoset are nicely layered: they can
be changed without really affecting other subsequent layers.

But adding (or subtracting) classes of infoset items seems a different
kettle of fish. The new class of info item will require a cascaded
version up throughout the specs that use it.

So my question is whether there is any W3C guideline that says
"revisions that have cascading impact should be a major version
not a minor version"?

Would that be useful?

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2002 06:58:45 UTC