On 13/08/2016 11:13, Pete Resnick wrote:
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?
I think that overstates the case. Certainly, they will be used as part of
a passive construct, but I really can't see a problem with something like:
The foobar header is OPTIONAL but the barfoo header is REQUIRED in all messages.
Of course, I could construct an equivalent sentence using MAY and MUST.
However, I think the adjectives are also useful in feature lists:
foobar OPTIONAL
barfoo REQUIRED
frooba RECOMMENDED
foobra OPTIONAL
Brian
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