Hi Harry and Tom,
To amplify Tom's point below, a well-written standard is structured
around statements like:
"Conforming management [agents|stations] [shall|should|may]
perform some action..."
You want to state conformance requirements on implementations,
not on the mere semantics/behavior of objects.
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald (outside consultant at Xerox)
High North Inc
PO Box 221
Grand Marais, MI 49839
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Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 12:37:59 PDT
To: jmp at pwg.org, Harry Lewis <harryl at us.ibm.com>
From: Tom Hastings <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: JMP> Re: RFC 2119, March 1997 has conformance language s
Sender: jmp-owner at pwg.org
Status: R
At 15:09 05/22/97 PDT, Harry Lewis wrote:
>In my opinion, it doesn't matter if these words are capitalize or not. I
>recommend against their use entirely.
>The very fact that these words need an RFC to define them indicates, to me,
>that they are too vague for
>use in a specification.
>>As an example:
>>Rather than say "... the Job Submission Attributes SHALL overide the PDL job
>attributes" it would be more
>concise to say "... the Job Submission Attributes overide the PDL job
>attributes".
The problem is that your second sentence is stated as declaration of fact
or a definition of "Job Submission Attribute", rather than of something that
is required that an implementation do in order to conform to the standard.
>>But, alas, I'm probably dabbling in IETF or Standards heresy, here, so ... on
>to other mail messages.
>>Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems
>>>------ Forwarded by Harry Lewis/Boulder/IBM on 05/22/97 03:43 PM ------
>>jmp-owner at pwg.org> 05/22/97 10:27 AM
>Please respond to jmp-owner at pwg.org @ internet
>>>To: hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com @ internet
>cc: jmp at pwg.org @ internet
>Subject: Re: JMP> Re: RFC 2119, March 1997 has conformance language s
>>Tom,
>>I would recommend that these terms be capitalized only if absolutely
>required or if strongly recommended by Scott Bradner. Otherwise, lets
>leave well-enough alone.
>> Ron Bergman
>>>On Thu, 22 May 1997, Tom Hastings wrote:
>>> I just read the RFC and it defines the following terms and suggests that
>> the following phrase be put early in the document:
>>>> The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL
>> NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
>> "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
>> RFC 2119.
>>>> Happily, the "shall", "should", and "may" terms are as the PWG has been using
>> in its Printer MIB, Job Monitoring MIB, and IPP documents.
>>>> It also has "must" as a synonym for "shall". I suggest that we continue
>> to use "shall", rather than switching over or using a mixture, in order
>> to keep our PWG standards using the same terminology. Ok?
>>>> It also says: "These words are often capitalized."
>> I've sent mail to Scott Bradner asking whether it is recommended to
>> capitalize. Seems like it would make these terms stand out more.
>>>> Should I capitalize SHALL, SHOULD, MAY (and NEED NOT) in the Job Monitoring
>> MIB? What about IPP documents?
>>>> Thanks,
>> Tom
>>>> At 23:46 05/21/97 PDT, Tom Hastings wrote:
>> >Thanks Larry,
>> >
>> >Tom
>> >
>> >>Return-Path: <masinter at parc.xerox.com>
>> >>Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 23:08:45 PDT
>> >>From: Larry Masinter <masinter at parc.xerox.com>
>> >>Organization: Xerox PARC
>> >>To: Tom Hastings <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>
>> >>Subject: Re: IPP> MOD - 5/14 mintues
>> >>References: <9705220435.AB09386 at zazen.cp10.es.xerox.com>
>> >>
>> >>RFC 2119: Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Level. S.
>> >>Bradner. March 1997. (Format: TXT=4723 bytes) (Updated by BCP0014)
>> >>--
>> >>
>> >>Larry
>> >>--
>> >>http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>>>>>>>>>