Discussion: Conformance version of Assembly Specification - Static vsRuntime marking

[Mike Edwards <mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com>]

Folks,

On the Assembly call this week, when
we discussed the Conformance version of the Assembly Specification,
there was a suggestion made that the
various normative statements should be labelled in a way that distinguishes
between "static checks" and
those which are "runtime checks".

I am not in favour of doing this for
the simple reason that I don't see its value.

It will certainly lead to a lot of debate
about whether a given normative statement is of one kind or the other -
and I
also forsee that some of the statements
actually will fall into both categories, depending on what entities are

being considered.  So, for example,
you can statically check the contents of a composite used as an implementation
- but you can't do this for the Domain
composite, even though it contains mostly the same elements.

There is also the question of the construction
of runtimes.  SCA runtimes may be rather vaied in nature.  Some
will be
very static, where everything must be
laid out and resolved before the runtime starts.  Others will be very
dynamic,
allowing changes on the fly while the
system is running.  Predicting when a runtime will be able to check
some
given normative statement is a difficult
exercise.

I'd appreciate other folks' views on
this point, so we can be prepared to make a decision next Tuesday.


Yours,  Mike.

Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great Britain.
Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014    Mobile: +44-7802-467431  
Email:  mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com

---

Unless stated otherwise above:
IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598.
Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU