Subject: SKiCal: 2.7 Value status

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 23:04:08 -0400

Ok, after chewing on the concept in 2.7  Value status I thought that may be some cases that were not listed. For example, 
instead of:

     TICKETS-AT;QUALTYPE=PRE-BOOKING;QUALRULE=REQUIRED;DTSTA 
      RT=19991104;VALUESTATUS=AVAILABLE:At the ticket booth outside of 
      the concert hall 

what about the case where the status is Unknown (ie: The Concierge does 
not know if there are tickets available or not for the evening concert):

     TICKETS-AT;QUALTYPE=PRE-BOOKING;QUALRULE=REQUIRED;DTSTA 
      RT=19991104;VALUESTATUS=UNKNOWN:At the ticket booth outside of 
      the concert hall 

Also, the description of the VALUESTATUS parameter is not quite the same 
way that it is shown in usage.  The text says:

   Purpose: To specify the status of a WHOW property value. 

but that implies that the property value for TICKETS-AT is available, 
irregardless of what it is.  However the usage is one where the 
VALUESTATUS is really an indicator of the properties physical presence. In 
other words, "At the ticket booth outside the concert hall" is the 
TICKETS-AT value and it is there but the meaning is really TICKETs are 
AVAILABLE.   The VALUESTATUS is more accurately an indicator of the WHOW 
properties physical presence (at least for the AVAILABLE case, not quite 
the same for, say, ENFORCED).

The description of this new property parameter needs to be tightened up to 
avoid any confusion as to its proper use/meaning.

Bruce

Note to SKiCal draft authors: Please put complimentary values on the same 
line by themselves or on separate ones entirely.  This:

   valstatparam = "VALUESTATUS" "=" *1("REQUIRED" / "NOTREQUIRED" / 
            "RECOMMENDED" / "NOTRECOMMENDED" / "PROHIBITED" / 
            "NOTPROHIBITED" / "ENFORCED" / "NOTENFORCED" / 
            "AVAILABLE" / "NOTAVAILABLE" / "ACCEPTED" / 
            "NOTACCEPTED" / "CONFIRMED" / "NOTCONFIRMED" / 
            "ALLOWED" / "NOTALLOWED")

is harder to notice pairs than:

   valstatparam = "VALUESTATUS" "=" 
            *1("REQUIRED"    / "NOTREQUIRED" / 
               "RECOMMENDED" / "NOTRECOMMENDED" / 
               "PROHIBITED"  / "NOTPROHIBITED" / 
               "ENFORCED"    / "NOTENFORCED" / 
               "AVAILABLE"   / "NOTAVAILABLE" /
               "ACCEPTED"    / "NOTACCEPTED" /
               "CONFIRMED"   / "NOTCONFIRMED" / 
               "ALLOWED"     / "NOTALLOWED")
===========================================================================
Bruce Kahn                                INet: [email-masked]
Iris Associates                          Phone: 978.392.5335
Westford, MA, USA 01886                    FAX: and nothing but the FAX...
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