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Re: RFC 2119 terms, ALL CAPS vs lower case

Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu> Wed, 16 May 2012 15:58 UTC

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From: Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@mit.edu>
To: adrian@olddog.co.uk
Subject: Re: RFC 2119 terms, ALL CAPS vs lower case
References: <562A61B995B24BD854A4D154@[192.168.0.2]> <m262bwchr9.wl%randy@psg.com> <08ab01cd3372$65934110$30b9c330$@olddog.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 11:58:28 -0400
In-Reply-To: <08ab01cd3372$65934110$30b9c330$@olddog.co.uk> (Adrian Farrel's message of "Wed, 16 May 2012 15:44:27 +0100")
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>>>>> "Adrian" == Adrian Farrel <adrian@olddog.co.uk> writes:

    Adrian> How about...  The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
    Adrian> "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",
    Adrian> "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted
    Adrian> as described in [RFC2119] when they appear in ALL CAPS.
    Adrian> These words may also appear in this document in lower case
    Adrian> as plain English words, absent their normative
    Adrian> meanings. Other words found in this document MAY also have
    Adrian> their expected meanings. The term TROLL-BAIT is to be
    Adrian> interpreted as described in [1].


I like this a lot with no sarcasm intended.
I'll note that  in my normal reading mode I  do not distinguish case,
but even so I find the ability to use may and should in RFC text without
the 2119 implications valuable.

Yes, you need to be careful. Yes, you should consider how your reader
might or might not notice the difference.  Consider though if you're
saying something like "an octet may contain a value between 0 and 255."
It's not really normative; it's a statement of fact. However, the world
will not really be made worse if someone checks the range of their octet
values.

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