Re: [apps-discuss] I-D Action: draft-ietf-appsawg-rfc3536bis-00.txt

[Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>]

On May 8, 2011, at 10:06 PM, Mykyta Yevstifeyev wrote:

> This sounds a bit confusing, since the previous sentence says "outside the IETF" and the next one mentions IETF RFCs.

Fixed.

> From Section 2, "language" definition:
> 
>>    language
>> 
>>       A language is a way that humans interact.  The use of language
>>       occurs in many forms, the most common of which are speech,
>>       writing, and signing. <NONE>
>> 
> I think this definition is not correct.  "A way that humans interact" is too generalized.  I suppose the following definition would suit better here.
> 
>>     language
>>   
>>        A language is a set of conventions on rules affecting humans' 
>>        speech.  The most common use of a language is speaking and 
>>        writing. <NONE>
>> 
>>        [ as in current draft ]

Your definition is too limiting. Clearly, we are not only talking about speech.

> Also "character" definition.  It would be useful to mention that "character" is often abbreviated to "char"

Noted.

> From Section 4.1:
>         
>>    punctuation
>> 
>>       Characters that separate units of text,  [ . . . ] they are also used in
>>       mathematical and scientific formulae, for example. <UNICODE>
>> 
>>    symbol
>> 
>>       One of a set of characters  [ . . . ]
>> 
>>       Examples of symbols include characters for mathematical operators,
>>        [ . . . ]
>> 
> 
> I see these two definitions give a bit contiguous specification of where chars used in formula.  You should either clarify the use of punctuation marks in formula or consider such chars belonging to one of such category.

A particular character can be considered both punctuation and a symbol.

> Also from Section 4.1:
> 
>>    control character
>> 
> I think we can clarify a bit this definition by mentioning: "The semantics of control characters depend on the application they are used with.  The most common control characters semantics are specified in ISO/IEC 6429:1992 [ISO6429]" and adding the appropriate reference to ISO 6429, like this: "ISO/IEC, "ISO/IEC 6429:1992. Information technology -- Control functions for coded character sets",1992."

This seems like overkill. We don't define the semantics of any other code points; why do it for control characters?

> Proposal for inclusion of definition in Section 8.  I think we could also define "noncharacter" here (and appropriate entry in the Index).  My proposed definition:
> 
>>      noncharacter
>>        
>>         A noncharacter is a code point that is permanently reserved
>>         in some particular coded character set and is generally 
>>         forbidden to be used in open data interchange. <UNICODE>

"noncharacter" is not a term commonly used in internationalization, I believe.

> Some comments on References:
> 
>>    [UNICODE
>> ]  The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
>>               5.2.0", Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium,
>> 
> This version - 5.2.0 - is obsolete.  It is superseded by 6.0.0; the reference should be: "The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 6.0.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2011. ISBN 978-1-936213-01-6) <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/>"

Noted.

> 
>>    [ISO3166
>> ]  ISO, "ISO 3166-1:2006 - Codes for the representation of
>>               names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1:
>>               Country codes", 20066.
>> 
> I don't think they've invented time machine to write this in 20066 :-)  Obviously, this is a typo: s/20066/2006

Good catch.

> I also think the reference to [CHARMOD] is a bit incorrect as well.  I propose:
> 
>> Duerst, M., Ed., Yergeau, F., Ed., Ishida, R., Ed., Wolf, M., Ed. and T. Texin, Ed., "Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0", W3C Recommendation, February 2005.  <http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod/>

Disagree. Listing a bunch of folks does not help the reference at all.

> To finish, why the intended status for this draft is BCP?  Longstanding IETF practice is to publish glossaries as Informational docs (previously, FYIs); examples are http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1208, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1983, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4949 and the predecessor of this draft itself - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3536.  I think Informational would suit better here.

As you are well aware, there is differing opinion on this. We'll let the higher-ups decide.

--Paul Hoffman