On 11 Aug 2016, at 6:44, Stewart Bryant wrote:
Optional is useful in a requirements RFC.
Feature x is REQUIRED
Feature y is OPTIONAL
One last (and perhaps fruitless) attempt to keep this section and
deprecate the adjectives:
Using REQUIRED and OPTIONAL results in exactly the problem of using
passive voice anywhere: REQUIRED by whom? OPTIONAL for whom? If you say,
"A MUST do X and B MAY do Y", it is perfectly clear which actor is
responsible (and in network protocols there are inevitably at least 2).
If you say "X is REQUIRED and Y is OPTIONAL", you'll end up needing more
text to explain the actors and their roles.
Using REQUIRED and OPTIONAL is lazy. It makes specs less clear. They
ought to be dropped.
pr
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Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478