Subject: Re: NEW: Path field delimiters and components; also #1003 USEFOR 3.1.3 - Resolution of msg-id issues

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:23:48 -0700 (PDT)

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>If the sites "dead" and
>"beef" find that some idiot has invented a site "dead:beef",

I'm curious. Is this "idiot" an idiot because they are doing something 
explicitely allowed in the USEFOR standard, or for some other unspecified 
reason?

I mean, if:

   path-identity   =  ( ALPHA / DIGIT )
                      *( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / ":" / "_" )
                                                                                
and someone actually follows that rule to create a path-identify for his
site that causes problems for existing sites, why is HE the idiot?

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:15:18 +0200

> site that causes problems for existing sites, why is HE the idiot?

While name-calling is not a good idea even when the person one is insulting 
cannot be identified, anyone who generates something permitted by the ABNF 
even when it's explicitly forbidden by the accompanying text is certainly 
not exhibiting good judgment.

On the other hand, if the standards writers intended to forbid it, and 
standard does not specifically say so, the standards writers are not 
showing good judgment.....

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From: Henry Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:32:55 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> ...anyone who generates something permitted by the ABNF 

A bit of background you might not be aware of:  in some earlier
discussions (on other topics), it was surprisingly difficult to convince
some participants that such accompanying text is actually part of the
standard, not just helpful commentary or advice to implementers. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email-masked]

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From: "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:51:58 -0400

> standard, not just helpful commentary or advice to implementers. 

In a discussion on the References field, Charles wrote this on 6/13/05
in <[email-masked]> indicating that he considers notes
to have no normative effect.  I don't think that Charles would
consider the main text not normative.

 > If all References headers are constructed according to the preceding
 > paragraphs, then circular references cannot arise. If, by some accident,
 > one does arise, then "garbage in, garbage out" applies as usual.
 >
 > But that paragpraph is just a NOTE, so it has no normative effect (and I
 > would prefer it to have been said in USEFOR - see my reply to Forrest).
 >

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From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:30:19 GMT

>explicitely allowed in the USEFOR standard, or for some other unspecified 

He should have known that ":" was a new feature of this standard, and that
it used to be a delimiter (not that anybody ever used it as such). Just
because a thing is allowed in the format does not mean that it is wise to
use it.

However, if you want to make the document idiot-proof, you could say:

    NOTE: ":" has been included in <path-identity> so as to permit an
    <IPv6address> to be used. Since older implementations may still treat
    it as a <path-delimiter>, it would be unwise to use it otherwise than
    as a part of an <IPv6address>.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

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From: "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 23:27:43 -0400

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> it used to be a delimiter (not that anybody ever used it as such). 

The drafts are intended to OBSOLETE old standards, not make them
normative references.

 > Just

If something is allowed in the format but it is not wise to use it,
there had better be something in USEFOR or USEPRO explaining it.  This
isn't "idiot-proofing". It is necessary, otherwise there is not a
complete and unambiguous specification.

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From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:13:57 GMT

>consider the main text not normative.

Indeed. For sure I don't consider NOTEs normative, but accompanying text
outside of NOTEs most certainly is.

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From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:22:46 GMT

>showing good judgment.....

Indeed. I proposed a text in response to John Stanley that could be
incorporated into the Message-ID section in order to point out the
unwisdom, at the present time, of using a ":" other than for representing
an <IPv6address>.