Re: [netmod] WG Last Call: draft-ietf-netmod-artwork-folding-02

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

From: Kent Watsen <[e-mail]>
Sent: 28 May 2019 17:53
To: Rob Wilton (rwilton) <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [netmod] WG Last Call: draft-ietf-netmod-artwork-folding-02




[RW]
Yes, I think that is better, and probably OK.

I still slightly question “One strategy is based on the time-proven use of a single backslash ('\') character to indicate where line-folding has occurred, with the continuation occurring with the first non-space (' ') character on the next line.”  Because I don’t think that is how ‘\’ character works, at least in languages such as C.  Specifically, it doesn’t ignore leading whitespace on the following line, instead it is often used where that whitespace is not significant to the compiler.

Would s/time-proven/POSIX/ be better?
[RW]
Perhaps, less is more, e.g.,

“One strategy is based on the historical use of a single backslash ('\') character to indicate where line-folding has occurred.”?

BTW, I also added this to Appendix A:

   Shell-level end-of-line backslash ('\') characters have been
   purposely added to the script so as to ensure that the script is
   itself not folded in this document, thus simplify the ability to
   copy/paste the script for local use.  As should be evident by the
   lack of the mandatory header described in Section 7.1.1, these
   backslashes do not designate a folded line, such as described in
   Section 7.


[RW]
OK.




[RW]
Perhaps “original text content” -> “exact original text content”?  But I’m also OK with your suggested text.

I'm hesitant, because it seems redundant, but it doesn't cause harm, so I added it.



[RW]
According to RFC2119, RECOMMENDED is interpreted exactly the same way as SHOULD.

Yes, when composing my response before I was going to say that it's a downgrade "(in IMO)", but figured it would require more explanation, which I was hoping to avoid.  But here we are now  ;)   While I'm aware that they carry the same RFC 2119 weight, RECOMMENDED reads softer to me, less commanding, hence my comment.
[RW]
Er, I strongly disagree that RECOMMENDED has any different semantic meaning to SHOULD.  RFC 2119 is explicit that they mean exactly the same thing.  If you want it to be softer, then perhaps change it to “recommended” which I do think is softer than “should”. 😊

 I still think that SHOULD/RECOMMENDED is too strong.

I still disagree.    Any tie-breakers out there?

[RW]
So, for example considering the current text, if it was a JSON input file, it would be more appropriate to change the indentation level to 2 spaces rather than 4 spaces to ensure that there are not unnecessary line wraps?  In theory, the only place in a JSON file that we would expect there to be a line breaks would be within a string because that is the only case that can’t be handled within JSON itself.

Is this your intended meaning?

Good point, how about this?

   Scan the text content to ensure no existing lines already end with a
   backslash ('\') character while the subsequent line starts with a
   backslash ('\') character as the first non-space (' ') character, as
   this could lead to an ambiguous result.  If such a line is found, and
   its width is less than the desired maximum, then it SHOULD be flagged
   for forced folding (folding even though unnecessary).  If the folding
   implementation doesn't support forced foldings, it MUST exit.

   <snip>

   For each line in the text content, from top-to-bottom, if the line
   exceeds the desired maximum, or requires a forced folding, then fold
   the line by:


[RW]
OK.

Great.  BTW, I also added this to Appendix A:

   This script does not implement the "forced folding" logic described
   in Section 8.2.1.  In such cases the script will exit with the
   message:

         Error: infile has a line ending with a '\\' character
         followed by a '\\' character as the first non-space
         character on the next line.  This file cannot be folded.


[RW]
Sure.

Thanks,
Rob


Kent // author