Hi, Paul.
On 17/12/13 21:10, Paul Hoffman wrote:
On Dec 17, 2013, at 12:45 PM, Elwyn Davies <[email protected]> wrote:
Minor issues:
s4: The unordered nature of the entries in an object is not mentioned.
Presumably it should state that two objects with the same sets of
name-value pairs ("members") in any order are logically equivalent.
This is not a "minor issue". Our charter says that the WG "will keep changes to a
minimum", and we have discussed almost every issue in this light. While some people would
agree with Elwyn that entries in an object are unordered, many would disagree because JSON can be
parsed by streaming parsers. There were multiple threads on the mailing list about this topic. The
wording in the current draft comes after multiple consensus calls on the topic. Adding a
requirement that we now declare the entries unordered goes against the charter and the consensus of
the WG.
In that case you have an inconsistency, since the Introduction says that the
entries
*are* unordered.
They *are* unordered. However, your message said that the document should state a specific definition of
that: "two objects with the same sets of name-value pairs ("members") in any order are
logically equivalent". We could not get consensus on a specific definition of "unordered".
I can't immediately see why using a streaming parser interacts
with the unordered issue but I am willing to be enlightened.
A streaming parser doesn't keep track of what name-value pairs it has already
seen. They allow objects to have name-value pairs where the name is the same
but the value is different. Lots of people thought this was a terrible idea,
and many thought it was just fine. The wording in the document reflects the WG
consensus on this difference of view.
I was assuming that
the effect should be that the internal representation generated after parsing
should be the same whatever order the entries come in.
That is a reasonable assumption, but it turns out there are many different
reasonable assumptions.
However, I can't tell if you consider this a "minor issue" or you really want to force
the WG to come up with a consensus definition for "unordered". If the former, great; if
the latter, I would want to hear from the IESG what they consider we did wrong with the earlier
consensus process and what process we would need to resolve this.
--Paul Hoffman
Just to be quite clear, I can't and don't want to force the WG to do
anything - that's not how gen-art works! The object of the exercise is
to help Jari do his job and in the process suggest things that might
make the doc easier for non specialists in the subject.
However, it seems to me that the inability to come up with a view as to
what unordered actually means could well lead to interoperability
issues. Whether this is significant is clearly not my call, but we
should also be clear that the issue exists.
/E
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