ietf-nntp Collected minor issues

[Russ Allbery]

Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:
> Russ Allbery said:

>>   The reference to RFC 1036 specifying when parameters are case or
>>   language specific is odd.  What are we delegating to RFC 1036 here?

> The decision on whether header names, message-IDs, and such-like things -
> when they appear in NNTP commands and responses - are case or language
> specific.

Hm.  For both RFC 1036 and RFC 2822, header names aren't case or
language-specific (and message-ids have already been dealt with
separately).  That makes me wonder if we couldn't simplify things here
slightly by omitting this provision and simply stating that all such
parameters are case-insensitive.  (I'm not sure if we need to mention
language or not.)

I don't have a strong opinion here, though; I was mostly looking for
references to RFC 1036 that may end up being normative.

>> 4.1. Wildmat syntax

>>     Note: the characters \, [, and ] are not allowed in wildmats, while
>>     * and ? are always wildcards.  There is no need for a * or ? 
>>     character that is not a wildcard in this specification since within
>>     it wildmats are only used on newsgroup names.

> I'd rather keep the present sentence there.

Yeah, that's fine with me, that's just unimportant writing style
differences.

>> 7.3.2.2. Description (IHAVE)
>>   In the paragraph starting with "This function differs from the POST
>>   command," the sentence beginning with "However" doesn't make a lot of
>>   sense to me in context.  It doesn't seem to be related to the previous
>>   paragraph.  Maybe add a paragraph break here and remove the "However,"
>>   at the beginning of the sentence?

> Disagree. It's saying "this command is for the onward propogation of
> articles, but that still doesn't prevent you deciding not to accept this
> particular article".

Okay, yeah, I see what you're getting at.  The current wording is fine
with me.

> True. The bytes v octets thing is not a big deal over the wire, where
> everyone sends 8 bit bytes, but they *are* different concepts on
> non-POSIX systems (POSIX now requires 8 bit bytes).

> Is there an IETF style guide on such things?

Good question.  I don't know.  I seem to vaguely recall seeing something
like that float by as an informational RFC, but I can't remember if it was
just an I-D, let alone what the title might have been.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>