Re: too positive on extensibility [was: random comments on 2nd LC of WebArch]

Hello dom,

Regarding your comment forwarded by DanC
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webarch-comments/2004JulSep/0068.html

> > - in 4.2.3 "Experience suggests that the long term benefits of
> > extensibility generally outweigh the costs" is probably too positive
> > without consideration for a trade-off;

please see the new introductory text at
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2004/webarch-20040928/Overview.html#ext-version

> In a perfect world, language designers would invent languages that
> perfectly met the requirements presented to them, the requirements
> would be a perfect model of the world, they would never change over
> time, and all implementations would be perfectly interoperable because
> the specifications would have no variability.

> In the real world, language designers imperfectly address the
> requirements as they interpret them, the requirements inaccurately
> model the world, conflicting requirements are presented, and they
> change over time. As a result, designers negotiate with users, make
> compromises, and often introduce extensibility mechanisms so that it’s
> possible to work around problems in the short term. In the long term,
> they produce multiple versions of their languages, as the problem, and
> they’re understanding of the problem, evolves. The resulting
> variability in specifications languages, and implementations
> introduces interoperability costs.

Later on we more clearly differentiate between extensibility and
versioning, as agreed at the TAG/QA joint telcon.

We believe this addresses your concern; do you agree?

-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris@w3.org
 Chair, W3C SVG Working Group
 Member, W3C Technical Architecture Group

Received on Tuesday, 5 October 2004 13:14:35 UTC