Re: 000302.2 Attribute extensibility

[Michael Eager <eager at eagercon dot com>]

James Cownie wrote:
> 
> > 000302.2      Attribute extensibility
> >
> >       This proposal was discussed and received generally favorable comments,
> >       but the consensus was that it needed more motivation and description.
> 
> So, is the consensus that I should do some more work here, or let it
> drop ?
> 
> What is it that folks want in the proposal if they do want more ?
> More examples ?
> More descriptions of when it might be useful ?
> 
> I'm a bit confused, on the one hand Michael keeps beating on us to
> make discussion and proposals here be formal, but on the other this
> minute seem to be asking for more non-formal description and
> motivations for this proposal :-( (Stuff which would be italicised as
> motivation or advice to users, rather than formal standard text).

Motivation (i.e., the benefits) are part of a formal proposal.  Whether
any or all of the supporting material is ever included as commentary in
the specification is an editorial issue and quite independent of the 
proposal.  The same can be said for examples.  

Please do not get the impression that my urging for formal proposals
is meant to turn the proposals into bare-bones "just the facts" documents.
Some of the incomplete proposals are just that, lacking in either justification
or adequate explanation.  On the other hand, I'm not going to sift through
a bunch of emails that end with "yeah, that's the idea" to attempt to 
reconstruct whatever is being proposed. 

So, in answer to your questions, I think that some examples of when and 
how your proposal would be used would be helpful.  The examples which we
came up with when we discussed this were less than convincing.  The example 
I came up with was that this could be used to hold type information like 
"Packed", but it was pointed out that this is a TAG type, not an attribute.  

-- 
Michael Eager	 Eager Consulting     eager@eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077