one minor tweak
A fine tweak. I'll write it up and pass it to a few people before I
post the I-D.
I'd rather do it as an update to 2119, rather than a complete
revision, even though 2119 is so short, for two reasons:
1. I don't want to get into arguments about other changes.
2. I don't want to make 2119 obsolete: there's value in continuing to
refer to it with that RFC number.
Barry
On Mar 28, 2016, at 10:09 AM, Barry Leiba
<barryleiba(_at_)computer(_dot_)org> wrote:
The wishy washy descriptive rather than proscriptive language in the
abstract was because I,
the IESG and the community were not of one mind to say that the use of such
capitalized
terms should be mandatory - quite a few people felt that the english
language was at
least good enough to convey the writer’s intent without having to
aggrandize specific words.
Thus the abstract basically was saying: if you want to use capitalized
words here is a standard
way to say what they mean
Ah. Then perhaps the clarification needs to go a little further and
make this clear:
- We're defining specific terms that specifications can use.
- These terms are always capitalized when these definitions are used.
these definitions are only meaningful if the words are capitalized
- You don't have to use them. If you do, they're capitalized and
their meanings are as specified here.
- There are similar-looking English words that are not capitalized,
and they have their normal English meanings; this document has nothing
to do with them.
...and I'd like to add one more, because so many people think that
text isn't normative unless it has 2119 key words in all caps in it:
- Normative text doesn't require the use of these key words. They're
used for clarity and consistency when you want that, but lots of
normative text doesn't need to use them, and doesn't use them.
Barry