Re: New Working Group Note: Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing

Hello Björn,

Many thanks for your comments.

On 2009/10/07 10:48, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
> * Richard Ishida wrote:
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/charreq/
>
> Two things are identical if you cannot tell them apart. Two things are
> merely equivalent in some context if the differences between them are of
> no concern in that context. The document confuses these terms as should
> be apparent from awkward phrases like "The string identity matching
> specification shall not treat as equivalent"; clearly a specification
> defining *identity* would treat things as *identical*, not as /equiva-
> lent/.
>
> The definition "Two strings match as identical if they contain no user-
> identifiable distinctions" is inherently incorrect. If there is any
> difference at all between two strings then users can necessarily identi-
> fy them. I find this terminological confusion harmful and would ask the
> Working Group to either change or withdraw the document.

The document has been around as a Working Draft for over 10 years. 
Nobody saw that problem, or thought that it was serious enough to 
comment (let alone to withdraw the document). In addition to what others 
have said, I'd also note that at a requirements stage, the main question 
is "what do we need", not "how are we best going to call it".

Regards,    Martin.

-- 
#-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp   mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp

Received on Friday, 9 October 2009 08:53:54 UTC