On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 2:35 AM, <chris.d...@gmail.com> wrote: > If the goal here is to write a spec, then I would prefer that spec > say what must be done and what must not be done, not what may be > done, could be done or is suggested as perhaps a best practice. > Those sorts of things belong in communication that is out of band of > the spec.
Actually, many specs (esp. Internet RFCs and language specs, the ones I am most familiar with besides PEPs) carefully define and use verbs of different strength, typically must, should, may, should not, must not. This is needed since almost all specs give the implementers of the spec some leeway in how to conform to the spec (otherwise it wouldn't be a spec but a program :-). Doubly so when there are two sides to a protocol (e.g. client/server, consumer/producer). -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Web-SIG mailing list Web-SIG@python.org Web SIG: http://www.python.org/sigs/web-sig Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/web-sig/archive%40mail-archive.com
