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

+1.

Sanjiva.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacek Kopecky" <jacek.kopecky@systinet.com>
To: "David Booth" <dbooth@w3.org>
Cc: "WS-Description WG" <www-ws-desc@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 9:21 PM
Subject: 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 10:45:01 UTC