[Bug 3220] Terminology: "must"

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=3220





------- Comment #8 from noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com  2008-02-20 16:56 -------
> I have a personal preference for only talking about conformance in a
> conformance section, and using other language ("must", "error", "constraint")
> elsewhere. Rather than saying "A schema document is not conformant with this
> specification if maxOccurs is less than minOccurs", 

FWIW, I would have said it as eiether:

"To be a conforming *schema document*, maxOccurs must be greater than or equal
to minOccurs".

Or in the conformance section:  "To a conforming *schema document* must obey
all the individual contraints on schema documents", and (presumably elsewhere)
"Schema Document Constraint: maxOccurs MUST BE greater than or equal to
minOccurs"

I thought our status quo was pretty close in spirit to that second approach.  

In short, I don't want to say that "documents conform to our Recommendation". 
I think I do want to say that a particular document does (or doesn't) conform
to our rules for *schema documents*, or more briefly "this is/isn't a
conforming *schema document*".

> I prefer formulations like:
> 
> [...]
> 
> * It is an error if minOccurs is not less than maxOccurs
> 
> [...]

> and then have a conformance section that says errors must be reported or
> constraints must be enforced.

Question:  don't you have to go beyond saying that "they must be enforced". 
Don't you have to say "for a document to meet the definition of *schema
document*, or if you prefer, to be a conforming *schema document*, there must
be no errors such as the one mentioned above?  How would you make such a
connection, or would you?  I'm really reluctant to lose the notion that to be a
(termref) *schema document*, you must obey rules like this.  Thanks.

Noah

Received on Wednesday, 20 February 2008 16:56:29 UTC