Subject: [Ltru] Re: Reference lists; AND ABNF GRAMMARS

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:42:29 -0700

I still don't see the need to introduce a new nonterminal for the
combination of primary lang plus extended lang(s).

Kent's version probably is prettier, but I share the concern about
introducing any new problems or inconsistencies with what has been
discussed and agreed upon before.  (The length of registered language
subtags is an exception: a bug was fortunately caught.)

There's a related maxim in programming: the week before beta is usually
a bad time to change all the variable names to conform to coding
guidelines.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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From: "Kent Karlsson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 07:53:04 +0200 (CEST)

> combination of primary lang plus extended lang(s).

Well, I did not introduce it. The -matching draft
(www.inter-locale.com/ID/draft-ietf-ltru-matching-03.html) says:

extlang = 2*3ALPHA *2("-" 3ALPHA) ( "-" ( 3ALPHA / "*" ) )

(indeed, with the non-terminal name you do not like for this...)

And Addison said that one only wanted to allow * at the end
of a logical part. And it is reasonable to have a non-terminal
for something that is regarded as a logical part.

    Kind regards
    /kent k
    (back on Monday...)

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 09:27:52 -0700

> (indeed, with the non-terminal name you do not like for this...)

I hadn't seen that, since I haven't spent much time with the matching
draft, and specifically hadn't looked at its ABNF.  All right, I don't
like it there either.

> for something that is regarded as a logical part.

I should put it this way:  Does the ABNF in these drafts *need* to be
fixed, in the sense that it is either (a) incorrect or (b) confusing to
the point where it is likely to be interpreted incorrectly?  If not, I'm
not convinced of the need to revise it thoroughly.

If the ABNF in the registry and matching drafts differ from each other
in unnecessary ways -- not just to reflect the different needs of
generative and constructive grammar -- then I think one should be
brought in line with the other, by changing individual lines.  But that
is as far as I'd go.

The ABNF in RFC 3066 was clearly incorrect: it allowed 1-letter subtags
in any position without restriction, and 1-digit non-primary subtags, so
that patently invalid tags such as "o" or "a-1-2-3" appeared acceptable.
It was two lines long and did not have any of the detailed
qualifications of the ABNF in the current drafts.  (Consider, for
example, how far the registry-draft ABNF goes to exclude "X" and "x"
from singletons.)  The ABNF in the current drafts goes much farther, has
been shaped by many more hands, and covers many more cases than in RFC
1766 or 3066, and unless there is a genuine error (like 4-letter
registered language subtags), I would prefer not to reform it.