Re: control combination was: Re: protocol-22 comments)

[Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no>]

Kurt D. Zeilenga writes:
>At 10:39 AM 5/7/2004, Jim Sermersheim wrote:
>> If there are only two cases (defined and undefined), then we need to
>> state what 'defined' means.
> 
> I think we can and should rely on the dictionary meaning of the word.

Which shifts the question to: defined by what?  'defined by a control
spec' seems a quite reasonable interpretation in this context, but
that's too strict if we forbid everything else.  We could spell out
'Defined by a control spec or the implementation', which is permissive
enough - perhaps too permissive, but what does it mean?  'documented by
the implementation'?  I suggested to require that about something else
once, and it was shot down.

Maybe a better distinction is that the implementation should not give an
ambiguous control combination arbitrary semantics; it should either
return an error or give it deliberatly chosen semantics.  And perhaps
error should be RECOMMENDED.

-- 
Hallvard