On 2012-05-16 18:53, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
On 5/16/12 9:58 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
...
I'll note that in my normal reading mode I do not distinguish case,
but even so I find the ability to use may and should in RFC text without
the 2119 implications valuable.
Agreed. But as a gen-art reviewer, I have several times had to ask
authors whether a particular lower case "may" was intended to be normative
or normal English. Authors must be fastidious about this.
Your mileage may (or is that MAY?) vary, but to forestall confusion I've
settled on the practice of using "can" and "might" instead of lowercase
"may", "ought to" and "is suggested to" instead of lowercase "should",
and "needs to" or "has to" instead of lowercase "must" (etc.). I'm not
saying that anyone else SHOULD or MUST use that convention, but you
might consider it in your own spec-writing.
It is indeed very important not to use "may" when it's ambiguous.
"It may rain today" is fine; "you may leave now" is not (I can think
of three different meanings). In RFC2119-talk, "you MAY leave now"
only has one meaning.
Brian