an unfilled need

[David Brownell]

Ann Navarro wrote:
>  
> Allowing for discovery, based on a schema, DTD, or whatever other defining
> mechanism is provided, lets tomorrow's Web browser have that same
> "knowledge" of a <foo> element, and any other knowledge deemed necessary or
> prudent by those who will be using said element.
> 
> I am not a software architect, I do not pretend to be one. Yet this is not
> an idea that is foreign to many who are, and even thought of as necessary
> by some of those.

Those of us who _are_ software architects work with the issues of
extensible systems all the time.  At some level it always boils
down to moving new code to someplace that can safely execute it,
which has been done since the first set of patch cords leaped out
of the primordial sea of circuitry onto a wall of clicking relays.

Given that it's been getting done sucessfully for so long, and
without addressing the "need" that started this thread, I still
fail to see why the W3C should try to involve itself in such work.

Whatever the W3C would try to dictate in this space, a better
solution will come along within the year.  And I suspect neither
would get that much more use than the systems people use today.
Plugins?  Applets?  Active-security-hole?  Yoiks.

- Dave

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