Re: Is this legal XHTML 1.1?

At 7:58 AM +0000 12/9/02, Ian Hickson wrote:


>If you read RFC2119, you'll find that SHOULD NOT is equivalent to MUST
>NOT for most cases.

OK, I just read that (a little belatedly) and I don't see that 
they're at all the same. Specifically, "SHOULD NOT" is defined as

    This phrase, or the phrase "NOT RECOMMENDED" mean that
    there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances when the
    particular behavior is acceptable or even useful, but the full
    implications should be understood and the case carefully weighed
    before implementing any behavior described with this label.

In other words, it's OK to do this if you have a good reason and you 
know what you're doing. MUST NOT is much stronger:

2. MUST NOT   This phrase, or the phrase "SHALL NOT", mean that the
    definition is an absolute prohibition of the specification.


-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
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Received on Monday, 16 December 2002 09:27:59 UTC