On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Glenn Adams <[email protected]> wrote: > > It has been stated to me that, at least for "open web platform > standards", > > the following statement is true and is shared by the majority: > > > > "if it isn't written in the spec, it isn't allowed by the spec" > > > > I happen to disagree with the truth of this, based on my personal > experience > > both with spec writing and with implementation/use of specs, but I would > be > > curious to see who agrees with this idea or not. > > > > The case in point is an instance of a possible ambiguity in a spec > because a > > particular assumption/convention is not documented; i.e., an assumption > that > > something isn't allowed even though it isn't explicitly disallowed. > While I > > agree it is, in general, impossible (or at least impractical) to document > > all disallowances, I do believe it is important to document important > > disallowances, particular when there are concerns raised about spec > > ambiguity. > > The statement you quoted is more or less accurate. Behavior that > isn't specced is almost certain to not be interoperable. If the spec > is incomplete or unclear in some aspect, that's a spec bug, not an > opportunity for implementations to make up their own behavior based on > what the engineer thinks is reasonable at the time they're writing the > code. > however, that is exactly what implementers do every day... especially those not closely connected with the spec process
