Title: Message
What
about support for scripting languages other than JavaScript?
Brian R.
Young
The
Boeing Company
(425) 865-5834
DISCLAIMER: Any opinions expressed
in this e-mail are my own and do not necessarily reflect the position of my
company.
-----Original Message-----
From: Eilon Reshef
[mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002
1:51 PM
To: 'Sean Fitts';
Subject: RE:
[wsia][wsia-requirements][R602]
I
think I see your point (I thought of modification as semantic versus
syntactic), how about the following wording (which still puts the
Customization issue aside):
This specification must support
common Presentation formats,
which are in use today in Net-enabled applications. In particular:
1.
It MUST support
Presentation Fragments in HTML, XHTML, XML
and WML.
2. It MUST
support JavaScript as an associated scripting language. Such support MUST include a way to support Actions triggered by scripts.
However, it SHOULD NOT be assumed that the Consumer
is aware of the semantics of scripting
elements.
3.
It SHOULD support
embedded binary presentation elements (e.g., Flash, Applets, etc.).
[Optional/Debate: Such
support SHOULD provide a way
to support Actions triggered by
such elements.]
However, it SHOULD NOT be
assumed that the Consumer modifies the binary elements in any
way.
I
personally think it makes sense to favor a single technical approach that
captures both (2) and (3), but I also don't see it as a high-level requirement
but rather as a technical preference.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Fitts
[mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 2:14
PM
To: Eilon Reshef; 'Rich Thompson';
Subject: RE:
[wsia][wsia-requirements][R602]
At 01:55 PM 5/8/2002
-0400, Eilon Reshef wrote:
I am not suggesting that the Consumer is not
allowed to change JavaScript, rather the suggestion is that we
wouldn't assume that it should. To me, that's because correctly
analyzing code constructs (in any language) without executing them is
anywhere from hard (from a practical perspective) to impossible (from a
theoretical perspective, as Theory of Computation shows).
I don't see a connection between supporting
modification of JavaScript
(which I agree is an open issue) and the need
to support complete,
path wise analysis of it. Leaving the halting
problem aside for a bit, it
would seem possible to extend the Adaptation
Description Language
proposed by IBM to include JavaScript modifications
along with XML
and CSS ones.
This is not to say that WSIA can't define an
interface that uses JavaScript (e.g., I assume the committee may decide to
define JavaScript functions, events, etc.), but I guess that the question
is can we require the Consumer to analyze JavaScript code to
support action routing, for example?
Again, I don't
see how leaving the second sentence out leads to
*requiring* the Consume
to analyze or even modify JavaScript. Such a
statement would seem
to need a positive assertion that such modification
*is* a requirement
(something which again, I view as open).
Customization is definitely something that we
will be discussing in the Customization sub-committee. My working
assumption is that the requirement below is rather generic, and applies to
anywhere from the scope of WSIA in general, to action routing, unique
tokens, etc., and that it might be changed as the Customization
sub-committee proceeds.
I guess my take is that it is
too generic. It seems to be trying to
take a half step and would
result in muddying things instead of making
them clearer. If it
really doesn't place any restrictions one way or the
other on our work,
then it doesn't seem like a requirement and I would
argue it should not
be included.
Sean
Eilon
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Fitts [mailto:]
2. It MUST support JavaScript as an associated scripting language
and MUST provide a way to support actions triggered by scripts.
[Optional/Debate: However, it MUST NOT be assumed that scripting
elements are modified by the Consumer in any
way.]
Why do you feel that the second "MUST NOT" statement is necessary?
To me it seems overly restrictive since it impacts both what types of
customization we will support and where the customization will occur.
My understanding is that both of these issues are still up for debate/
description in the customization sub-group.
