On 22/05/2010, at 20:08, Robert Kisteleki wrote:

> On 2010.05.21. 23:19, Geoff Huston wrote:
>>>> I agree with Terry on this one. I'd personally be much happier with
>>>> verified/unverified instead of valid/invalid. These terms are much
>>>> closer to what we really mean.
>>> 
>>> Ack. We will make this terminology change in the next revision of the
>>> draft.
>> 
>> I disagree with this terminology change - there are three states that are
>> potential outcomes of the process, not two and the proposed terminology
>> does not accommodate this. I request that no change be made in
>> terminology.
> 
> Geoff, you misunderstood. We proposed varified/unverified/unknown instead of 
> valid/invalid/unknown.

I also prefer valid/invalid/unknown.

I don't believe that the term "unverified" has quite the desired meaning.

"verified" is a positive assertion ("yup, all ok"), "unknown" is a null ("pass, 
I have no idea"), and the third state should reflect that it is the _opposite_ 
of "verified" (ie, *known* to be incorrect), so "verify failed" (or "failed 
verification", or simply "failed") would, I believe, be more accurate than 
"unverified"...

... at which point, it seems to me that valid/invalid/unknown is less 
cumbersome.


To look at it from another angle: If you wanted to order the update in order of 
preference, you would have to prefer "valid" updates over "unknown", and 
"unknown" over "invalid".

[ If you were to base a comparison function for sorting on this DB lookup, I 
believe it would have to look like this:

    valid  =  1
  unknown  =  0
  invalid  = -1
]

I don't think that "unverified" quite cuts it in this context, as it is not the 
negative counterpart to the positive "verified" assertion. A naive 
reader/implementer might believe that "unverified" is less dubious than 
"unknown", and incorrectly order the values. 

Rob

-- 
Robert Loomans                         email:       [email protected]
Senior Software Engineer, APNIC        sip:    [email protected]
http://www.apnic.net/                  phone:         +61 7 3858 3100

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