Re: ABNF related feedback to: Re: AD review of draft-ietf-httpbis-alt-svc-10

On 2015-12-31 18:00, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2015-12-31 17:38, Barry Leiba wrote:
>> Hi, Julian, and thanks for the quick reply on a holiday extended weekend.
>
> Dito :-)
>
>> ...
>>>> -- Section 3 --
>>>> Please consider using RFC 7405 for the ABNF for "clear".
>>>
>>> That would replace
>>>
>>>    clear         = %x63.6C.65.61.72; "clear", case-sensitive
>>>
>>> with
>>>
>>>    clear         = %s"clear"; case-sensitive
>>>
>>> (and add a dependency to the ABNF extension).
>>>
>>> I'm not super-excited about this notation, and it seems we would be the
>>> first ones to actually use it (implying lack of validation tools etc).
>>>
>>> What do others think?
>>
>> It's a small thing, and it's up to the working group, of course.  I
>> would prefer the change, because (1) I think it makes it more
>> readable, and (2) we have put 7405 on the Standards Track, so we
>> should use it.  It wouldn't be a bad thing for us to break ground on
>> it.
>
> I might invest a bit of time to teach bap (Bill's ABNF Parser) to accept
> this; and once I can validate it I could be convinced to actually use it.

Done in <https://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/changeset/2749>...

So what does the rest of the WG think? Should we use this bleading-edge 
ABNF feature?

>>>> -- Section 3.1 --
>>>> For the persist ABNF, why 1DIGIT, and not just DIGIT?  Or, for that
>>>> matter, why not simply "1" ?  Other specifications might then add other
>>>> values using << persist =/ "2" >>, for example.
>>>
>>> I believe the intent was that new values do not imply changing the
>>> parser
>>> (which would be implied by changing the ABNF), but simply would allow
>>> new
>>> values here.
>>
>> Three questions here, really, bundled into one:
>>
>> 1. Why "1DIGIT", rather than "DIGIT"?  Purely editorial, of course...
>> what's the benefit of using the "1"?
>>
>> 2. Why does "persist" have to be digits at all?  I'm generally not a
>> fan of unnecessarily coding concepts into numbers, rather than using
>> short words.  If it's necessary (or useful), that's fine.  I don't see
>> why here.
>
> I'll pass this to those who suggested the syntax :-)
> ...

Thinking if it some more...:

1DIGIT vs DIGIT: it's really just a matter of style, I'm ok with 
changing it.

Digits: I believe it was inspired by "DNT", where of course the same 
question could be asked.

Patrick: is Firefox shipping with support for "persist" already?

Best regards, Julian

Received on Sunday, 3 January 2016 13:40:41 UTC