Re: Normative vs Non-normative Notes (was Re: Other suggested editorial changes)

David, others,

I favor option b - all notes being non-normative. The notes you
identified as carrying what was intended as normative text should be
rephrased as normal paragraphs, not notes. 

I see notes as clarifications of intention behind some spec text, or as
human-readable explanations of some particularly obscure pieces of
specese. Intentions are not normative, explanations are redundant and
therefore should not be normative either.

                   Jacek Kopecky

                   Systinet Corporation
                   http://www.systinet.com/



On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 22:57, David Booth wrote:
> Evidently different people have different ideas about whether "Notes" are 
> supposed to be normative, so we need to straighten this out.  We currently 
> have some Notes that are intended to be normative and others that are 
> intended to be non-normative.  (I'll address the individual Notes in a 
> separate message.)
> 
> To focus on the general editorial question, I guess I see four options:
> (a) Have normative Notes only -- Delete non-normative text or move it to a 
> section that is already non-normative.
> (b) Have non-normative Notes only -- Move normative text into a paragraph 
> of its own in the text.
> (c) Have normative Notes AND non-normative Notes.
> (d) Have no Notes at all.
> 
> At present, the spec suggests option a, because Section 1.2 says:
> [[
> All parts of this specification are normative, with the EXCEPTION of 
> pseudo-schemas, examples, and sections explicitly marked as "Non-Normative".
> ]]
> 
> Personally, I think that informative, non-normative notes can be very 
> helpful to the reader, so I would prefer option b or c.  And of these two, 
> I think option b would be better, as it will be simpler to implement and 
> less messy.  (In a companion message, I'll itemize what I think needs to be 
> done to each existing Note.)
> 
> What do others think?

Received on Thursday, 18 March 2004 10:23:07 UTC