Subject: [dhcwg] Re: Several reminders

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 13:55:56 -0700

>Actually, this is not true, and is a dangerous idea.   If I define the
>format of something that's authoritatively defined elsewhere in my own
>draft, and I make a mistake in transcribing or paraphrasing the
>authoritative source, this is likely to create interoperability
>problems when someone doesn't refer to the source.   So I _must_ refer
>to the authoritative source, and _must not_ paraphrase it.

Ted,

I'm not understanding your point.

I didn't say that you shouldn't have references. What I said was that 
writing a number in little square brackets doesn't exempt the writer from 
the normal rules of English grammar. Footnotes and endnotes are not the 
English language equivalent of "#include". If the text is necessary for 
the basic understanding of the sentence, then it should be in the 
sentence. Footnotes and endnotes can provide additional clarification, 
but the sentence should still be grammatically correct if you ignore them.

This seems to be a modern trend in writing, particularly in documents 
like RFCs which not academic research papers, but are written somewhat in 
that style. If you look at research publications from fifty years ago, no 
one would ever have thought of using a sprinking of footnote and endnote 
references as a substitute for a grammatically correct sentence.

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer
 * Chairman, IETF ZEROCONF
 * www.stuartcheshire.org

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 21:37:48 -0400

> English language equivalent of "#include".

Ah, I see.

So is what I did misleading or confusing, or do you just think it's
bad style?

If it is the latter, I don't disagree, and I will follow your
recommendations in the next draft I write, but I do not want to have
to change this draft now.   The usage about which you are complaining
was cribbed, IIRC, from a draft that is now an RFC.   :'}

			       _MelloN_