Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] "Strictly conforming" is not related to "interoperable"

["Sam Johnston" <samj@samj.net>]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:20 AM,  <robert_weir@us.ibm.com> wrote:

Strictly conforming disallows the extensions.  So it does reduce the range of variability.  But it doesn't eliminate it.  So I think there is a relationship there, but not one which in itself guarantees interoperability.

The key thing with extensions is that if the spec allows for a feature then the output should be conformant (for that feature) rather than expressed as an extension, unless there is good reason to stray.

A simple, quantitative metric that could potentially be applied is the ratio of in-spec to out-of-spec content (where implementations are punished for [ab]using extensions), but then there are questions as to whether you cound #directives, #bytes, etc.

Sam

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Sam Johnston
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