On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 03:58:22PM +0200, Ben Campbell wrote: > >> -- date-and-time, pattern and description: > >> > >> Which is the normative description for date-and-time? The ABNF in > >> the description, or the pattern attribute? I assume the second, but > >> fear the presence of ABNF will make others assume the first. > > > > Ideally, they should be consistent - and I hope they are. The ABNF is > > more detailed - if you read the comments - and copied from RFC 3339. > > If we make a change, we should completely remove the ABNF from the > > description and simply leave the pointer to RFC 3339, e.g. > > > > For a more detailed description, see section 5.6 of RFC 3336. > > > > Since the ABNF is copied, this does not really change much unless RFC > > 3336 gets updated perhaps. For now, I have left things as they are but > > I am open to be convinced to remove the ABNF if someone feels strongly > > about this. > > I don't feel strongly--it was just a mild general concern that duplicate _normative_ text can lead to future errors if, as you say, the RFC gets updated. But if you see value in having the ABNF in the description, that's okay with me. At the most, it might be worth putting a comment in the description to see the RFC for the full normative definition. Since there is an explicit reference to RFC 3336, I think this is covered. Many of the data types document formats that are described in other documents and there is a general trade off what to include and what to leave out and to include by reference. I guess it is at the end a judgement call and at this stage of the process, I simply prefer to minimize changes. /js -- Juergen Schoenwaelder Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH Phone: +49 421 200 3587 Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany Fax: +49 421 200 3103 <http://www.jacobs-university.de/> _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf