From: David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
To: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca>
Cc: devicetree spec mailing list <devicetree-spec@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Definition of "should" seems inconsistent with idea of "deprecated"
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:33:07 +1100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <ZTG8szcUghDU12ZZ@zatzit> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <cddc5065-42d2-11f6-9195-296361c8aef7@crashcourse.ca>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1402 bytes --]
On Thu, Oct 19, 2023 at 07:03:56AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
> Reading DTSpec v0.4, near the beginning:
>
> "The word should is used to indicate that among several possibilities
> one is recommended as particularly suitable, without mentioning or
> excluding others; or that a certain course of action is preferred but
> not necessarily required; or that (in the negative form) a certain
> course of action is deprecated but not prohibited (should equals is
> recommended that)."
>
> It seems contradictory to suggest that "should" implies
> "recommended" but, in the negative sense, it can also support
I believe that by "in the negative form", it means when something says
"should not"..
> "deprecated", which typically suggests something that is *not*
> recommended but is nonetheless acceptable.
..in which case being similar to "deprecated" makes sense.
I will agree that saying "in the negative form", parenthesized,
amongst a cluster of interacting clauses is probably not a great way
of expressing this, and it might be clearer to explicitly give a
meaning to "should not".
>
> It just seems like that's giving off mixed messages.
>
> rday
>
--
David Gibson | I'll have my music baroque, and my code
david AT gibson.dropbear.id.au | minimalist, thank you. NOT _the_ _other_
| _way_ _around_!
http://www.ozlabs.org/~dgibson
[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2023-10-20 0:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-10-19 11:03 Definition of "should" seems inconsistent with idea of "deprecated" Robert P. J. Day
2023-10-19 23:33 ` David Gibson [this message]
2023-10-21 9:08 ` Robert P. J. Day
2023-10-23 0:32 ` David Gibson
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=ZTG8szcUghDU12ZZ@zatzit \
--to=david@gibson.dropbear.id.au \
--cc=devicetree-spec@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=rpjday@crashcourse.ca \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox