Re: Last Call: 'Definitions of Managed Objects for Remote Ping, Traceroute, and Lookup Operations' to Proposed Standard

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Robert Elz wrote:
I cannot see why there's a debate going on here.   If someone, anyone,
can read a spec, and, in good faith, point out a possible ambiguity in
the text, before the doc is finalised, and if fixing it to avoid the problem is easy, what possible justification can there be for not adding a few
words to clarify things, and make sure that confusion does not happen?

Whenever someone points out a problem like this, the response should be
something like "OK, if we write it like ... does that make it clear?" or
perhaps "What would you suggest as clearer wording?" but never "It is
clear enough as it is" as the latter is already demonstrated to be false.

My mother can't read internet drafts either. Should we change our language so that my mother can read and comprehend them.

It is assumed that there is a baseline knowledge when we write drafts... If you don't know how MIBs work in general - there are a LOT of problems that you have to sort out before you can provide technical feedback to the community. Someone who is practiced in the art of reading/writting/implementing MIBs isn't going to have a problem with strictly monotonically increasing Indexes - knowing what that means, and how to implement it and test the implementation for correctness.

Somone who has been watching a rant on the list recently invovling the work monotonically increasing, MIGHT see the word and get confused. I am not to worried about that - the document really isn't for their eyes anyway (I'm not about to comment on various security drafts either - should they be simplified so I can understand them, I hope I am expected to put in the work so that I understand them instead)


Certainly it is possible to explain the wording on the list, and convince
the objector that very careful understanding of the context makes the
intent clear - but that does nothing for the next person who comes along
and makes the same interpretation "mistake" (perhaps without even
realising the possibility for ambiguity, but simply interpreting the text
a different way).


Bill

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