Re: Updated Proposal: i24 Requiring Allow in 405 Responses

Mark Nottingham wrote:
> 
> Not clear. My take (as a native American speaker who has been corrupted 
> to speak en-au sometimes) is that 'the' implies that there is only one 
> possible set.

That's also my understanding as an en-gb native, corrupted to speak 
~en-us/gb.

> 
> However, I'm not that fussed about it; I'm happy to give it to the 
> editors to decide (and I suspect they'll change it to 'the').
> 
> Unless someone has a good technical argument otherwise, and is 
> passionate enough about it to hold us up, we'll let them decide.

No engineering-based technical argument, but I do think there is a clear 
semantic difference between 'a list' (one of a potential several) and 
'the list' (the only list). Using 'a' implies (to me at least) that the 
server may maintain more than one list of allowed methods for the given 
resource, and return a particular list given particular circumstances. 
'The' doesn't imply that to me. If we wish to imply by that sentence 
that there is no single list of allowed methods per resource, and we 
believe that anyone other than me will notice the difference, then using 
'a' would make sense.

Or, we could just let the editors decide ;)

Regards,

- john

> 
> 
> On 07/04/2008, at 9:39 AM, Henrik Nordstrom wrote:
> 
>> sön 2008-04-06 klockan 13:57 +0200 skrev Julian Reschke:
>>
>>> I haven't heard any new feedback, so I propose that we go with this
>>> proposal.
>>
>> Was there consensus on "the list" -> "a list" change?
>>
>> I have no opinion on that change as of now, but it looks odd to me (but
>> may just be a language issue with English not being my native language)
>>
>> Regards
>> Henrik
>>
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/
> 
> 

Received on Wednesday, 9 April 2008 03:17:35 UTC