Re: Non-constructible constructors and Arrays

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen@wirfs-brock.com>wrote:

>
> On Aug 3, 2011, at 11:13 AM, Mark S. Miller wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen@wirfs-brock.com>wrote:
> [...]
>
>> In general, we are moving away from using such text as it creates spec.
>> maintenance problems and we have see cases where differences in expression
>> between normative/non-normative text  creates confusion.  The non-normative
>> text also has a tendency to receive less intensive reviews and  this can
>> lead  to it diverging from what is stated in the normative text.
>>
>
> Agreed on all but this last. I agree that non-normative text creates the
> problems you explain. I agree we need to find a way to minimize these
> problems. However, doing so by removing non-normative text seems to me to be
> a cure worse than the disease. Specs from the W3C and many other stds orgs
> have notational conventions for clearly distinguishing normative from
> non-normative test. We don't. How much do they suffer from the same problem?
> If the answer is, not much, perhaps all we need is a clearer notational
> distinction?
>
>
>
> ECMA-262 uses the mandated ISO/ECMA formatting conventions for
> non-normative text.
>

I understand. I'm asking whether we need a clearer distinction.



>
> Allen
>
>


-- 
    Cheers,
    --MarkM