On 26 Sep 2008, at 05:06, Russ Allbery wrote:
"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:How about this:<section anchor="supersedes" title="The Supersedes Header Field"><t>The presence of a Supersedes header field in an articlerequests that the message identifier given in that header field bewithdrawn in exactly the same manner as if it were the target of a cancel control message. Accordingly, news servers SHOULD apply to a Supersedes header field the same authentication and authorization checks as they would apply to cancel control messages. If the Supersedes header field is honored, the newsserver SHOULD take the same actions as it would take when honoringa cancel control message for the given target article.</t>I think inverting the sentence makes it clearer.Yes, but I would still like to see the word "whatever" in theresomewhere, just to make it clear that there might well be no checks on cancel messages (and hence no action applicable to Supersedes). That is,in fact, the common current practice, much as we might wish otherwise :-( .Does "the same authentication and authorization checks as they wouldapply" versus "whatever authentication and authorization checks they would apply" feel different in meaning to you? That shading of meaning is toofine for me to detect, and the word "whatever" seems less formal and precise, which is why I used the former wording. "The same" to me includes the possibility of "none."
:-) I have occasionally similar arguments with my wife regarding word usage, which is when she generally reminds me that I've been a computer programmer for too long, and I usually realise she's right.
"the same checks" does definitely have a small difference in implication to "whatever checks". "the same checks" has a slightly stronger implication that there is at least one check. It's not a hugely stronger implication, no. And it is just in implication, rather than in explicit meaning.
However, I think that that is not a bad implication to have, and you are certainly correct that "the same" includes the possibility of "none".
Certainly implementors of news software (the target audience for this) should already understand that possibility. :-)
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