Re: FW: [Issue 320] Add definition to 1.1 for ability to be expressed in words

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:

> But if we say "expressed in 50 words or less" someone will ask where the
> number 50 came from.
>
> But all limits are eventually arbitrary.
>
> Anyone want to nominate a nice objective number so this is testable?

A further problem: the number of words that is reasonable will vary by
language. I suggest that if you want to be precise, state a requirement
which doesn't specify an arbitrary, language-specific number. For example
"the number of words comprising 5 sentences of average length", where the
average length is computed by reference to the text of the content.

Yes there's still an arbitrary number here, but it isn't so
language-dependent and makes the length relative to the complexity of the
remainder of the content. I am sure others can come up with more creative
proposals.