Re: Fuzzy words [was Uppercase question for RFC2119 words]

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

Brian, I think your note goes to how important it is to write clearly
and to get a lot of eyes on it before we publish it.  Well-written
documents, with or without 2119 key words, and with or without
lower-case look-alikes, can still be clear.  Fuzzily written documents
will be fuzzy.

In particular:

> they mean? It can be very unclear. If a node receives a message containing
> an element covered in the spec by "allowed" instead of "OPTIONAL", is the
> receiver supposed to interoperate or to reject the message?

Well, this is where 2119 advises that we *use* the key words when
interoperability is at stake.  It's fine to be fuzzy when it doesn't
matter, though even then, I'd argue for more explanation:

   Every frobotz MUST contain a valid bleeg.  The glorp field in the
   frobotz is an unsigned integer that is normally between 0 and 666,
   inclusive.  Values greater than 666 are allowed, but recipients
   using older software might not be able to handle such values.
...
   When processing a frobotz that does not meet the requirements in
   section 3.1.4, it is permissible to reject the frobotz outright, or to
   attempt to process the parts of it that make sense; the choice is
   an implementation decision.  However, any frobotz that does not
   contain a valid bleeg MUST be rejected.

That sort of thing.

Barry

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 3:58 PM, Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:
> There are times when I think RFC2119 was a really bad idea, despite it having
> become probably the most frequently cited RFC (inside and outside the IETF).
> It seems to create as much confusion as it avoids.
>
> There are four words whose RFC2119 meaning is different from the dictionary
> meaning: should, recommended, may and optional. Having special typography
> for them is useful, because it signals the RFC2119 meanings. But if a spec
> uses, for example, a mixture of SHOULD and should, who knows what the authors
> intended? To that extent, the proposed clarification is helpful.
>
> The other words (must, shall, required, not) mean what they always mean.
> The only argument for upper-casing them is aesthetic symmetry. If a spec
> uses alternatives like mandatory, necessary or forbidden, they are just as
> powerful.
>
> So
>> these definitions are only meaningful if the words are capitalized
> can be applied to should, recommended, may and optional if we want,
> but strictly doesn't apply to must, shall, required, not, mandatory,
> necessary, forbidden, need, or any other such words.
>
> Where we can get into real trouble is if a spec contains should, recommended,
> may and optional *plus* other non-categorical (fuzzy) words like ought,
> encourage, suggest, can, might, allowed, permit (and I did not pull those
> words out of the air, but out of draft-hansen-nonkeywords-non2119). What do
> they mean? It can be very unclear. If a node receives a message containing
> an element covered in the spec by "allowed" instead of "OPTIONAL", is the
> receiver supposed to interoperate or to reject the message?
>
> If we are issuing guidance, it should probably include a specific warning
> to use any such fuzzy words with extreme care.
>
>    Brian
> On 29/03/2016 03:13, Scott O. Bradner wrote:
>> one minor tweak
>>
>>> On Mar 28, 2016, at 10:09 AM, Barry Leiba <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The wishy washy descriptive rather than proscriptive language in the abstract was because I,
>>>> the IESG and the community were not of one mind to say that the use of such capitalized
>>>> terms should be mandatory - quite a few people felt that the english language was at
>>>> least good enough to convey  the writer’s intent without having to aggrandize specific words.
>>>> Thus the abstract basically was saying: if you want to use capitalized words here is a standard
>>>> way to say what they mean
>>>
>>> Ah.  Then perhaps the clarification needs to go a little further and
>>> make this clear:
>>> - We're defining specific terms that specifications can use.
>>> - These terms are always capitalized when these definitions are used.
>>
>> these definitions are only meaningful if the words are capitalized
>>
>>> - You don't have to use them.  If you do, they're capitalized and
>>> their meanings are as specified here.
>>> - There are similar-looking English words that are not capitalized,
>>> and they have their normal English meanings; this document has nothing
>>> to do with them.
>>>
>>> ...and I'd like to add one more, because so many people think that
>>> text isn't normative unless it has 2119 key words in all caps in it:
>>>
>>> - Normative text doesn't require the use of these key words.  They're
>>> used for clarity and consistency when you want that, but lots of
>>> normative text doesn't need to use them, and doesn't use them.
>>>
>>> Barry
>>
>>
>