x-samp namespace suggestion

[Juande Santander Vela]

Mark, thanks for the clarification.

I think the “in any case either is likely to be reasonable” makes for a good case for the MAY, but I think it could be spelled out in the sentence, something like:

  The ``{\tt samp}'' and ``{\tt x-samp}'' form of the same key
  SHOULD NOT be presented in the same map, but if they are,
  the ``{\tt samp}'' form MAY be considered to take precedence, 
  as the final behaviour is likely to be reasonable.
  
But now I see why it does not make a difference in behaviour, and it alleviates implementors’ burden.

El 27/09/2011, a las 19:08, Mark Taylor escribió:

> Juande,
> 
> thanks for the careful reading.
> 
> On Tue, 27 Sep 2011, Juande Santander Vela wrote:
> 
>> One question: why saying MAY here?
>> 
>> The ``{\tt samp}'' and ``{\tt x-samp}'' form of the same key
>> SHOULD NOT be presented in the same map, but if they are,
>> the ``{\tt samp}'' form MAY be considered to take precedence.
>> 
>> As far as I see it, that MAY should be a SHOULD, to allow for predictability.
> 
> My thinking was to reduce the burden on implementors, in cases where
> the outcome doesn't really matter.  If a map with both keys is presented, 
> whoever produced it has done something wrong, and the consumer 
> shouldn't be expected to put much effort into behaving properly;
> the MAY is just there to give a hint which way to jump if somebody 
> wants to try hard to do the right thing, but in any case doing either
> is likely to be reasonable.  If it was SHOULD, then client authors 
> (with a conscience) might have to spend effort dealing with a case 
> which is unlikely to occur.
> 
>> I cannot foresee an scenario where a client would do different for x-samp.X than for samp.X, outside of system prototyping that should not reach users...
> 
> Some kind of bug is the most likely cause; but agreed, it is not
> expected to happen.

--
Juande Santander Vela
Software Engineer, ALMA Archive Subsystem
Data Flow Infrastructure Department, Software Development Division
European Southern Observatory (Germany)

Anónimo: A veces es necesario guardar silencio para ser escuchado.