On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 01:20:07PM -0400, Scott Hollenbeck wrote:
Section 4.7: "A script will fail if it attempts to execute two or more
vacation actions."
Should "will" be either SHOULD or MUST? "will" describes an implementation
behavior.
I also had a comment on 4.7 that I sent off-list. Essentially:
I did wonder about that wording; seems to me that the the script as
a whole probably shouldn't fail, but the non-first vacation
action(s) should give an error. i.e. duplication vacation actions
should fail, not abort the entire script. (Not to mention that if
the script were to fail on the second "vacation" then there would be
no need to say "or more".)
I think this is an absolutely terrible idea. VIolations of the least
astonishment principle abound. Consider:
vacation whatever1;
vacation whatever2;
if test {fileinto blah;}
If the test fails the script appears to work, sending one vacation response
but not the other. But if the test succeeds the script now fails for reasons
having nothing to do with the test. Such a gotcha can remain hidden
indefinitely only to go off when you least expect it - a script landmine.
Plenty of similar examples can be constructed but I think this is sufficient
to demonstrate that far from improving error handling, this makes a mess of it.
Another nit was:
5.8 In-Reply-To and References
>
> Section 3.6.2 of [RFC2822] provides a complete description of how
> References fields should be generated.
Pretty sure that's supposed to be section 3.6.4
Fixed.
Plus some minor comment about the spelling of my name :-)
Sorry about that. Also fixed.
Ned