* Michael G Schwern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-09-07 06:40]: > We're not prohibiting other formats, just establishing a > baseline.
I think we specifically want to prohibit other formats in TAP metainformation. For app data, we could advise authors to use the same format, but I don’t think > It's mostly to avoid the mess of... > > 02-03-1997 Is it Feburary 3rd, 1997 or March 2nd, 1997? > > 01-02-03 Jan 2nd, 2003 or Feb 1st, 2003 or maybe Feb 3rd, 2001! > > 3:02 3:02 am or pm? In what time zone? > > Thu Sep 6 21:32:19 PDT 2007 Oh great, I'm supposed to parse this? If it’s app data, then the answers to these questions are all up to the app author. We can’t protect people from themselves, and we can certainly not tacitly tell them that they’re violating best practice if they’re working with existing code or standards that use awful datetime formats. > The TAP datetime proposal is a *recommended* format. It says... > > "TAP recommends that TAP output should follow the following > standard for dates and times." > > "should" and "recommend" are as RFC 2119. Ouch. An RFC 2119 SHOULD is a *strong* exhortation to follow the recommendation. Basically it says “stray from this requirement if you insist, but if things break you have no one to blame but yourself – don’t come crying to us.” I *really* don’t think TAP should make dictates on that level on app data formats. > Which is to say, most people will just follow the TAP datetime > standard when outputting dates. If you really need to use > another datetime format, go ahead. Seriously, I think we should be silent about which datetime formats people use in app data. For TAP metainformation, conversely, the format choice should be REQUIRED not just RECOMMENDED. SHOULD is costly and should be avoided in favour of MUST or MAY wherever possible – we had this discussion we had frequently in the Atom WG. Over time, given enough implementations, any given SHOULD tends to be treated as either a MAY or a MUST anyway. That reasoning leads me to conclude that we can reduce the cost of this SHOULD over time by making it no formal requirement at all for app data and a MUST for TAP metainformation right off the bat. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>
