RE: What "ignore" means (was: RE: Defined sets, accept sets, and <banana> elements)

As I proposed on the TAG call, perhaps "Must Accept Unknowns".

I'll think about your usecase a bit..

Cheers,
Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com [mailto:noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 11:18 AM
> To: David Orchard
> Cc: Tim Berners-Lee; www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: What "ignore" means (was: RE: Defined sets, accept 
> sets, and <banana> elements)
> 
> Dave,
> 
> > I agree that the definition of "ignore" needs elaboration.
> 
> As we discussed on the TAG call a few minutes ago, I think 
> you're focussing on just the right question, though I remain 
> unsure that "ignore" 
> will in most cases be the most appropriate word.  Repeating 
> what we said there, my intuition is that "accept" is about 
> the right word to describe a text that is consumable by some 
> application or conformant with some 
> specification.   I think many languages provide generic semantics for 
> handling content that is not explicitly described 
> (whitespace, comments, extension elements, diffferences in 
> text that are not significant, etc.) 
> 
> Here's a use case I mentioned in passing.  I think it's a 
> common one, and a good test of our terminology.  Consider a 
> name language in which, in version 1, the case of the input 
> (I.e. upper or lower case) is no more (or
> less) relevant than <banana> elements in HTML.  So:
> 
>         name1.nam:
>  
>         bob smith
> 
> is for most purposes semantically equivalent to 
> 
>         name2.nam:
>  
>         Bob Smith
> 
> I say for the most part, because just as the HTML DOM allows 
> you to see <banana> elements, the V1 specification for my 
> language says:
> 
> "Case is in general not significant in version 1 of this 
> language.  A keyword such as APPLE is generally treated the 
> same way as apple. However, when displaying, printing or 
> storing the text of a document, applications SHOULD preserve 
> the supplied case.  Note:  it is possible that subsequent 
> versions of this language specification will consider case to 
> be significant.  Accordingly, version 1 documents SHOULD be 
> created as lower case only (indeed, applications receiving 
> mixed or uppercase documents may assume that they were 
> created by software written to later versions of this specification.)"
> 
> So, I'd say that's a good example of future proofing.  If the 
> defined set is lowercase, then each acceptable document 
> either is in or has an equivalent document in the defined 
> set.  The interesting question is: 
> what's being ignored?  It's certainly not any of the 
> characters.  While it so happens that in some encodings, case 
> is a separate bit, we can't assume that. 
> 
> Note that when we talk about generic semantics, the story 
> gets easier than if we're looking for something to ignore.  
> The generic semantics is: 
> retain case for printing, storage, etc., and otherwise treat 
> as if uppercase is mapped to lowercase. 
> 
> I think it would be good if our terminology were suitable for 
> such forms. 
> First of all, they're simple and quite common.  Secondly, 
> it's a good way to make sure we haven't slipped in 
> assumptions we didn't intend. 
> 
> Anyway:  I'm really glad we're starting to look more 
> carefully at the assumptions behind "ignore".  I've always 
> felt that to be where the meat of the problem is.  Thanks!
> 
> Noah
> 
> --------------------------------------
> Noah Mendelsohn
> IBM Corporation
> One Rogers Street
> Cambridge, MA 02142
> 1-617-693-4036
> --------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "David Orchard" <dorchard@bea.com>
> 06/21/2007 04:59 PM
>  
>         To:     <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
>         cc:     "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>, <www-tag@w3.org>
>         Subject:        RE: Defined sets, accept sets, and <banana> 
> elements
> 
> 
> I agree that the definition of "ignore" needs elaboration.  I think
> there are at least 2 major flavours: ignore and delete, and ignore and
> retain. 
> 
> Given that you agree that "weaving" is a good next step, what do you
> think about "weaving" by reference to a micro-finding rather than
> weaving into the text? 
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com 
> [mailto:noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com] 
> > Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 1:01 PM
> > To: David Orchard
> > Cc: Tim Berners-Lee; www-tag@w3.org
> > Subject: RE: Defined sets, accept sets, and <banana> elements
> > 
> > David Orchard wrote:
> > 
> > > I had an action item, either official or unofficial, to 
> > weave a story 
> > > like this into the finding.  I suggested to you and the tag 
> > that your 
> > > material could be either incorporated into the finding or as a 
> > > separate micro-finding, and that I'd do any extra work 
> > required.  You 
> > > didn't support either of those options,
> > 
> > To be clear, you are welcome to "weave" what I wrote into the 
> > finding if you think that's the right next step.  I was 
> > merely suggesting a direction that I thought would be 
> > interesting, and that would involve doing a bit more 
> > investigation and consensus building before we decide what to 
> > put in the finding.  One way or the other, I strongly believe 
> > that we need to think hard about, and probably tell a story 
> > in the finding about, languages which have semantics other 
> > than "ignore" for extension content. 
> > By all means, if you think my email is the right basis for 
> > telling that story, then integrate it, and we'll see what the 
> > reaction is.  Sorry if my original email was confusing.
> > 
> > --------------------------------------
> > Noah Mendelsohn
> > IBM Corporation
> > One Rogers Street
> > Cambridge, MA 02142
> > 1-617-693-4036
> > --------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > "David Orchard" <dorchard@bea.com>
> > 06/21/2007 03:17 PM
> > 
> >         To:     <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
> >         cc:     "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>, <www-tag@w3.org>
> >         Subject:        RE: Defined sets, accept sets, and <banana> 
> > elements
> > 
> > 
> > I had an action item, either official or unofficial, to 
> weave a story
> > like this into the finding.  I suggested to you and the tag 
> that your
> > material could be either incorporated into the finding or as 
> > a separate
> > micro-finding, and that I'd do any extra work required.  You didn't
> > support either of those options, so I'm not interested in 
> duplicating
> > such work by completing my action using separate material.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Dave
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com 
> > [mailto:noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com] 
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:14 PM
> > > To: David Orchard
> > > Cc: Tim Berners-Lee; www-tag@w3.org
> > > Subject: RE: Defined sets, accept sets, and <banana> elements
> > > 
> > > David Orchard writes:
> > > 
> > > > I had an action item, either official or unofficial, to 
> > > weave a story 
> > > > like this into the finding.  I think that action is now closed..
> > > 
> > > Well, I've suggested a direction for deciding what to do, but 
> > > it's just my opinion.  Are you suggesting that you are going 
> > > to go through the steps I suggested and update the finding 
> > > depending on what results?  Thanks.
> > > 
> > > Noah
> > > 
> > > --------------------------------------
> > > Noah Mendelsohn
> > > IBM Corporation
> > > One Rogers Street
> > > Cambridge, MA 02142
> > > 1-617-693-4036
> > > --------------------------------------
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 25 June 2007 18:26:17 UTC