Identification of Express Version

[Pascal Huau]

Dear all,


I would like to add my two cents (of Euro) in the debate.


Q1: Is it needed to indicate the version of the Express language in an Express schema?

If I am the customer of an application, the answer to Q1 is no. (If I am expert enough to know that there are several versions and TCs of Express) I want to know which version and TC of Express, the application implements and the marking of Express schemas does not provide me any information about that.

If I am developer of an Express application, the answer is also no.
Either my application implements the latest version of the language or it does not. 
If it does not,  then it will return an error when it encounters an Express language construct (e.g. extensible select) that did not exist in the version of the language that was considered at design of my application.
If it does, then the application will hopefully recognize all language constructs. As long as upward compatibility is kept in the specifications of Express language, these constructs can be interpreted correctly by the application, whatever they are old or new constructs. 
So the actual question to answer is: 
Q2: is Express2 upward compatible with respect to Express1? Are all the Express1 constructs still valid in Express2? Is there any restriction in their specification that has been introduced in Express2?


Regards,
Pascal Huau
Association GOSET
107,111 avenue Clemenceau
92000 Nanterre
France
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.steptools.com/pipermail/wg11/attachments/20020506/d1f271ba/attachment.html