Ryan King wrote:
> Toby A Inkster wrote:
>
>> It does claim that it's a "set" of class
names, and in mathematical
>> parlance sets are unordered by definition, and must
not contain
>> duplicates, but it's unlikely that the framers of
the HTML 4.01 spec
>> intended the world "set" to be
interpreted in that way -- far more
>> likely they were referring to the layman's
definition of the word.
>
> Specs aren't generally written in layman's terms.
What I meant was that the vast majority of the words used in
most
specifications are not explicitly defined, nor are other
normative
references provided giving a definition of them. This is
fair enough.
You don't want to read through an enormous glossary at the
end of a
specification defining words such as "first",
"down" and "the". When
a word is not explicitly defined in the specification
itself, or in
a reference, one should assume that the normal everyday
meaning of
the word is implied.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that of all the entries
in the
Oxford English Dictionary, the word "set" has the
longest, spanning
several pages. In the context used in the HTML 4.01 spec, I
find it
unlikely that they were specifically referring to the
mathematical
usage of the word "set", unless they were
attempting to be
deliberately obscure.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 7 days, 21:25.]
Looking Ahead to Perl 6
http:
//tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/02/05/perl6/
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