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Re: EcmaScript, gone?

Subject: Re: EcmaScript, gone?
From: James Clark <jjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 11:02:15 +0700
dom wysiwyg ecma script
keshlam@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> But I worry just slightly about closing the door to
> user-written extensions at a time when people are still figuring out what
> they want to use XML for and how they want to use it

The door hasn't been closed on user-written extensions. From the current
WD:

2.10 Extensibility

This section will describe an extensibility mechanism for the tree
construction process.

     Issue (construct-extensibility): Should there be some extensibility
mechanism for the tree construction
     process? If so, how should it work? Should it be language
independent?

The WG wasn't happy with the approach to extensibility taken by the XSL
submission , so it didn't include that feature in the WD; that doesn't
mean it's decided never to have an extensibility mechanism.

My manifesto for an extension mechanism would be something like this:

- The extension mechanism is for extensibility only.  It is
unnecessary for common tasks.

- The extension mechanism is independent of any single
programming/scripting language.

- An extension is identified by a (globally unique) URI (probably
leveraging XML namespaces)

- XSL defines a standard mechanism for implementing extension; this
would leverage the DOM and probably be defined in IDL

- An XSL implementation is free to choose which if any languages
they support this standard mechanism for. It may allow extensions to
be implemented using a non-standard mechanism instead.  For example, a
WYSIWYG editor has stringent implementation constraints which may make
it impractical for such editors to support the standard mechanism.
Such an implementation might choose to support an extensibility
mechanism tailored to its implementation needs.

- Stylesheets can optionally associate the URI identifying an extension
with resources that implement it using the standard mechanism. They may
associate implementations in multiple languages with a single extension
URI.  The association could be done outside the stylesheet (perhaps
using RDF).

I think VRML's extension mechanism is a good example of the sort of
thing we need.

James



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