Re: Proposal for restructuring 7.1

[James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>]

--On 17 July 2001 19:27 +0900 Murata Makoto <mura034@attglobal.net> wrote:

> The BNF in 7.1 is very difficult to understand.

It depends what you mean by "understand".  I think all our target audience 
can understand grammars without difficulty.  And I think all our target 
audience can easily use the spec to determine whether a particular schema 
is correct according to the BNF.  It's also clear and unambiguous.

However, on a more intuitive level I agree it is difficult understand. What 
is the grammar really doing? Why is it written the way it is?

I don't think the solution is to make the grammar informative. That is 
completely backwards.  The grammar is the precise, rigourous, unambiguous 
expression of what is allowed.  That is exactly what is needed for the 
normative part.  To assist in understanding, I think we should add 
additional informative text. Specifically, I would propose adding at the 
beginning of 7.1 a bulleted list of 7 or so paragraphs, each of which 
describes one of the restrictions that the grammar enforces; each of these 
paragraphs can refer to the productions of the grammar that enforces the 
restriction.

James