Re: [emergency-msg] Backward compatibility

[Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>]

At 5:24 PM -0400 10/3/03, R. Allen Wyke wrote:
>From a system/application design standpoint, the approach of hardcoding
>the support for a schema in an app is not wise and is very short
>sighted. It locks you into a single version of a standard, or at least
>makes it hard to support newer versions, because it means your system
>must be updated to support the newer versions.

I agree... but some degree of hardcoding is the reality for anyone 
who deploys in firmware... which is to say, for the majority of folks 
deploying consumer devices.  Hopefully most such systems will have 
some provision for updating their receivers, but that's not something 
we get to dictate.

This was the larger point to my earlier comment about web services. 
Those of us who work in the networked-computer world need to make an 
extra effort to remember the needs of stakeholders in other 
industries.  OASIS is heavily weighted toward the IT industry, but 
CAP in particular has a much wider constituency.  If we don't address 
the needs of folks outside the IT mainstream, we risk forcing them to 
create their own divergent standards.  That would be regrettable and 
counterproductive, and it seems unnecessary.

- Art