Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] Should and Shall in standards

As someone who needs to code to established, RFC track standards (for email), I 
know
full well what MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, and such, mean. RFC documents
frequently define these terms in the early paragraphs of the document, even 
though
the terms are used the same way in, it seems, every RFC document I have ever 
read.

There would be standards chaos if it were otherwise. I don't find your use of 
such
terms to be in line with the prevailing conventions. I agree with msr. Cohill.

Andrew M Cohill (address@hidden) wrote*:
>
>>     It uses the words "you should not inlcude GIF's in..." it does *not* say
>>     "you cannot" or "you shall not". It says "should not", which implies an
>>     option.
>>
>>It is a requirement, not an option.  This file always states
>>requirements with "should not", never "cannot" or "shall not".  The
>>file uses "cannot" only for factual statements about what is possible,
>>and never uses "shall" at all.
>
>  I was a member of the ANSI Standards Committee HFES-200 (Software
>Ergonomics) for more than 10 years.
>
>All ANSI standards  use "should" and "shall" in this way:
>
>Should-- strongly encouraged to do it, but it is not required.
>
>Shall--to be in compliance with the standard, you must do it.
>
>We also were part of the ISO 9241 Standards Committee, and the
>Europeans also followed this practice.
>
>Andrew
>--
>--------------------------------------------------
>Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D.
>Director, Blackburg Electronic Village
>address@hidden    http://www.bev.net/
>
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