The problem with SHALL is that in other contexts it often means MUST, which is kind of weird, and not really what the english word means. I tend to agree that it's worth advising against its use.
On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:44 AM, Stewart Bryant <stewart.bryant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Optional is useful in a requirements RFC.
Feature x is REQUIRED
Feature y is OPTIONAL
- Stewart
On 11/08/2016 12:27, Dearlove, Christopher (UK) wrote:
Grammatically, RECOMMENDED is sometimes useful, as using SHOULD instead can produce less clear sentences. In principal the same applies to OPTIONAL, but I've never had cause to use it.
I wouldn't miss SHALL. Except that SHALL is often the word used outside the IETF rather than must, and there may be many RFCs using it, so do need to keep the explanation, even if deprecated to use it in new documents.