ietf-822
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Re: On ABNF in 5322: Advice needed

2008-09-26 03:02:46

Pete Resnick wrote:
The suggestion was made (and it's been made by others) that all ABNF terminals should be surrounded with angle brackets, so it's easy to distinguish "a phrase" from "<phrase>" and "a quoted string" from "<quoted-string>".

As an occasional RFC reader, I haven't been able to spot the point where the angle brackets would be useful. If a passage requires that distinction, I would consider more instructive to explicitly explain it at the point where it is needed, rather than cluttering all the text with annoying angle brackets.

If all ABNF terminals were to be surrounded by angle brackets, then that would obviously be required within rules as well, thereby defining ABABFN (Angle Bracket Augmented Backus–Naur Form). RFC 5234 says angle brackets are not required.

Choice (A): "Don't touch a damn thing, Pete! It's too much of a risk to screw things up, and we're moving to Draft Standard. And nothing is so ambiguous as to make any difference."

+1

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