Re: delimiters vs separators

At 08:35 AM 2003-09-25, Mike Brown wrote:
>Hello again,
>
>This is in reference to
>http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/ietf-uri/rev-2002/rfc2396bis.ht 
>ml?rev=1.64
>
>I was under the impression that the verbs "delimit" and "separate" were
>slightly different concepts, but the spec seems to use the terms rather
>interchangeably. Delimiters are usually bounding a discrete type of
>item on both sides, such as the quotes around attribute values in
>HTML/XML, whereas separators are things that are interposed between
>items in a series, such as the slashes in a path. I suggest being more
>consistent with these terms throughout the spec.

Can you suggest specific edits where changing the current language would
make the sense of the specification clearer?  Such as you provided in
the case of the 'path component'?

It is plausible to consider that both terminators and separators are
delimiters.  The above remark is perhaps unnecessarily biased toward
flat partitions as regards taxonomy, as well as unenforceably vague as
regards the draft.

I think we would have to see concrete evidence of actual damage (to
comprehensibility) to get a consensus behind a change.

But most of us have been re-reading this language too many times to
perceive where it is impenetrable.  Fresh eyes such as yours are very
helpful under the circumstances.

Al

Received on Thursday, 25 September 2003 10:12:37 UTC