RE: Fwd "a comment on NFC"

At 09:41 03/10/03 -0400, Francois Yergeau wrote:

>Graham Klyne wrote:
> > I disagree with this... I don't think we should be
> > prescribing what to do
> > with bad inputs ... it's up to an implementation how it
> > wishes to deal with error situations.
>
>Like XML says you MUST crash and burn if you encounter input that's not
>well-formed?

Well, yes, if you refer to XML's definition of "Fatal Error".

I don't particularly agree with the way XML spec tells applications what to 
do here.  (I'd say it's primary role is to define what constitutes valid 
XML, maybe define certain kinds of conformance, say what documents may be 
considered equivalent, and maybe point out the problems of trying to 
process documents that don't meet some basic conformance requirements.)

But in this case, if NFC is a SHOULD, I don't think it can be regarded as 
any worse than what XML calls an error, from which an application is 
permitted (not required) to recover.

I could support something like a "security considerations" note that points 
out the potential dangers of accepting non-NFC text.

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
GK@NineByNine.org

Received on Friday, 3 October 2003 13:30:11 UTC