On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:11:25 +0200, Rotan Hanrahan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I am concerned by subtle conflicts in the normative text. For example,
you read the following:
"The value of the text response entity body MUST be determined by
running the following algorithm:"
The use of MUST as per RFC 2119 in this text makes the algorithm
Normative, while the text you quote says: "User agents MAY optimize any
algorithm..."
Yes, they are not required to do so. What it basically says is that user
agents are free to implement the specification in any way they want as
long as they return the same results as the specification would for all
possible inputs. We can't even always tell what algorithms they have used
to implement the functionality. For instance, with closed source
implementations. The statement is there just to avoid confusion. (The
sentence is in fact taken from the XBL 2.0 specification as suggested by
someone during the Last Call phase.)
I fully accept that it is intended that optimizations will be permitted.
It's just a formulation of the text that caused a little confusion for
me. The normative text: "The value of the text response entity body MUST
be determined by running the following algorithm," doesn't give the
necessary flexibility that is intended.
Could you give an example that shows why this is not the case?
--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>
