- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>
- Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 03:25:43 -0700
- To: Koen Holtman <koen@win.tue.nl>
- Cc: http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
>Usually this apparently normative language merely explains or restates >actual normative language in the main text. I recall that at least >one editor (Roy?) had the policy of stating all normative requirements >exactly once, in order to reduce the risks of >self-contradictions. This policy leads to the editorial device of >using a note whenever you want to explain or restate requirements >already stated once. The editorial policy of using a note to explain non-normative design decisions comes from the MIME specs (or at least that's where I got it from). Anything that is normative should just be changed to a non-note. >> MMS 025: I am not sure if Jeff is right in his assumption as to >> what the term "common form" is supposed to mean. Maybe "common >> form" means `not extended over multiple lines' here. >> >>As I wrote, we don't have a definition for "common form" in general, so >>we can argue until the end of the millenium about what this paragraph >>actually means. When I originally wrote "common form" it wasn't associated with a requirement -- it was implementation advice. "common form" means just that -- whatever is commonly used by other applications at the time of implementation, which might have changed over time. If you want to spell it out, I'd say the current common form is fieldname: fieldvalue with no extra space or line continuation folding. ....Roy
Received on Tuesday, 11 August 1998 04:01:17 UTC