A) The start of this I-D seems a little coy - 'various protocol specifications'
'several protocols' - and this is reflected in the Abstract and Introduction.
Reading between the lines, this seems to have had its genesis in the 'Sub-IP
Area' specification; nothing wrong with that, but the coyness seems misplaced.
More generally, I think that this I-D cries out for an Applicability Statement.
It makes brief reference to RFC5234 but contains no guidance that I can see as
to when this standard should be used or when RFC5234 should be. The IETF has a
history of producing multiple standards and letting the market decide but I
think that we do a better job when we give guidance.
B) Coyness again, in its definitions
'The basic building blocks of BNF are rules and operators'
but what is a rule? RFC5234 eg says
"A rule is defined by the following sequence:
name = elements crlf"
and I think that something similar is needed here (or else make RFC5234 a
normative reference:-)
C) In a similar vein, to me, and perhaps to many in the IETF, it is RFC5234 or
its precursors that represent the 'standard' meta-syntactic language. Some
comparison of the functionality would be helpful, as an informative Appendix.
Is this a proper subset, if not, then where?
D) As s.2.4 says.
'Precedence is the main opportunity for confusion in the use of BNF.'
I think this should go further. The underlying reason IMO is because the
concatenation mechanism, the one with no operator, takes precedence over the
alternative operator, and this is counter-intuitive. RFC5234 spells this out
' Use of the alternative operator, freely mixed with concatenations,
can be confusing.'
and, IPR permitting (I note that this was submitted pre-5378 but any revision
would not be:-), I suggest incorporating such text.
Tom Petch
----- Original Message -----
From: "The IESG" <iesg-secretary(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
To: "IETF-Announce" <ietf-announce(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 7:56 PM
Subject: Last Call: draft-farrel-rtg-common-bnf (Reduced Backus-Naur Form (RBNF)
A Syntax Used in Various Protocol Specifications) to Proposed Standard
The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'Reduced Backus-Naur Form (RBNF) A Syntax Used in Various Protocol
Specifications '
<draft-farrel-rtg-common-bnf-07.txt> as a Proposed Standard
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