Re: some input on sieve-00

[Tim Showalter <tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 10 May 1997 kjj@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Tim Showalter <tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> >I won't change the word "sort" to "autofile" as I find that to be worse, but
> >I think the section might be a little vague.  Can someone give me a wrong
> >interpretation of the section?  Or is it better to change "sort" to
> >"filter"?
> 
> Filter tends to imply altering something.  That might not be appropriate
> in this context.

I don't think filter implys altering anything; the term has been in use in
various circles.

> >Can you offer a counterproposal?  I can't see another good way to do it; the
> >syntax errors falling through cause too many problems.  Furthermore, the
> >design of the language allows one if clause to stop processing; aborting out
> >of that if clause to allow the rest of the script to run would make it
> >very difficult to predict control flow during a syntax error.
> 
> Expressed in this way, I'm willing to agree that it's acceptable
> behaviour.  If that's the goal of the statement in the document, I would
> like to see verbage in the document stating the reasoning. Without such
> an explanation, I think the behaviour would be viewed in a poor light.
> It might also serve to inhibit non-compliant implementations.

I don't think inhibit is the right word.

In any case, it is the goal of the statement in the document.  I have this
idea that someone will case off all their mail except for things that look
like bombs and toss 'em.  This would cause problems if anything had errors.

I could add some explanatory text to the document.

> In general, I'd like to see more of the rationale of the design decisions
> documented in the spec.

Isn't that very atypical for a standards document?

-- 
                                           Tim Showalter tjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx