Re: Question about proposed CP8.4

I proposed a new SpecGL CP8.4 that would say:
Promote consistency across multiple discretionary items.

Now, Lofton Henderson asks:
LH>About the proposed rewrite of CP8.4:
LH>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Apr/0030.html
LH>Previously, it was about "discretionary choices", and purposely --
LH>we had particular "choice" scenarios in mind. Now it is about
LH>"discretionary items" (choices, plus optionality, plus
LH>impl-dependent behaviors).

I think there was confusion about wording consistency vs. policy
consistency. The full proposal (cited above) pushes the wording
consistency requirements into other checkpoints. Thus, the overhaul
makes 8.4 pertain to policy consistency only. As I was drafting the
rationale and other supporting verbiage, I didn't come up with any
good reason to limit it to choices. For example, if the WG decides
that conforming products have wide-open discretion to choose which
natural languages to support, and which character sets to support,
then they have a general policy about not restricting languages.
They can then state the general policy and make it a point to hold
to that policy where more detailed discretion (choice or other)
will apply, such as character sets for numbers, xml:lang attributes,
collation routines, etc.
.................David Marston

Received on Sunday, 4 May 2003 23:56:58 UTC