[702] Discussion

DR609 of the current draft [1] was ballotted to receive more discussion.
To kick this off I'd like to reiterate the content of the requirement
and mention some of the reasons why it was considered apt for more
discussion.

Current text:

-----
DR702 Requirement for Evolution
The XP specification must define the concept of protocol evolution and
define a mechanism or mechanisms for identifying XP revisions. This
mechanism or mechanisms must ensure that given two XP envelopes it should be
possible, by simple inspection of the envelopes, to determine if they are
compatible. The specification must define the concepts of backwards
compatible and backwards incompatible evolution. Furthermore, the XP
envelope must support both optional and mandatory extensibility of protocols
build using the XP envelope.
-----

Most of the requests for discussion for this requirement centred on the
problem
of detecting 'compatibility' between messages. Alternative wording for this
requirement
was provided previously on the list and references to this wording were made
in the
ballots. Accordingly, this wording is now recommended for 702:

-----
DR702 Requirement for Evolution
The XP specification must define the concept of protocol evolution and
define a mechanism or mechanisms for identifying XP revisions. This
mechanism or mechanisms must ensure that an XP processor, by simple
inspection of an XP envelope, may determine whether or not the
envelope is compatible with its processing ability. The specification must
define the concepts of backwards compatible and backwards incompatible
evolution. Furthermore, the XP envelope must support both optional and
mandatory extensibility of protocols build using the XP envelope.
-----


Comments and discussion encouraged :)

 --oh

[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/xp-reqs-03

Received on Tuesday, 28 November 2000 06:54:20 UTC