forward compatibility

jargon The ability to accept input from later versions of

itself.

Forward compatibility is harder to achieve than backwardcompatibility, since, in the backward case, the input format

is know whereas a forward compatible system needs to cope

gracefully with unknown future features. An example of future

compatibility is the stipulation that a web browser should

ignore HTML tags it does not recognise.

See also extensible.

(2003-06-23)