- From: Alex Rousskov <rousskov@measurement-factory.com>
- Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 14:57:13 -0600 (MDT)
- To: pat hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- cc: www-qa@w3.org, lesch@w3.org
On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, pat hayes wrote: > I have a style question regarding how best to render RFC2119 meanings > in HTML documents. > > http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-qaframe-spec-20030210/ section 1.6 says: > > "The keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", > "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY ", and "OPTIONAL" will be > used as defined in RFC 2119 [RFC2119] . When used with the normative > RFC2119 meanings, they will be all uppercase. Occurrences of these > words in lowercase comprise normal prose usage, with no normative > implications. " > > I would normally understand this to mean that these keywords should > appear in a document in visible uppercase. However, section 9.7 of > http://www.w3.org/Guide/pubrules says: > > "When these key words are used in the RFC sense, make them UPPERCASE, > enclose them in the em element, and style them with CSS to make the > UPPERCASE readable. > <em title="MUST in RFC 2119 context" > class="RFC2119">MUST</em> > > .RFC2119 { > text-transform: lowercase; > font-style: italic; > } " > > and the recommended styling removes the uppercase from the view of > the document as seen in most browsers, so it is impossible for a > reader to see whether the word is being used normatively or normally > (with emphasis). > > So, which is it? MAY what the reader sees on their screen look like > lowercase italic, or MUST it look like uppercase Roman? Hmm... The "lowercase" text-transform looks like a typo unless the authors consider true uppercase not "readable". Personally, I much prefer "MUST" to "must" because many documents use lower case words as just words, not RFC2119 keywords. Alex. -- | HTTP performance - Web Polygraph benchmark www.measurement-factory.com | HTTP compliance+ - Co-Advisor test suite | all of the above - PolyBox appliance
Received on Thursday, 12 June 2003 16:57:17 UTC