RE: Issue with MIB compilation requirement in "AD Review of I-Ds" (http://www.ietf.org/ID-nits.html)

["C. M. Heard" <heard@pobox.com>]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Wijnen, Bert (Bert) wrote:

> I like Juergen's text.
> 
> Other opinions?
> 
> Thanks,
> Bert 

Here is what I came up with over the weekend for a revised version of
Section 4.2 of the MIB authors and reviewer's guidelines document.
Like all wordsmiths, I think it's even better that the suggestion
from my learned colleagues, but I'm sure I'll be quickly disabused of
that notion :-)


4.2.  Descriptors and Labels

   RFC 2578, Sections 3.1, 7.1.1, and 7.1.4, and RFC 2579, Section 3
   recommend that descriptors associated with macro invocations and
   labels associated with enumerated INTEGER and BITS values be no
   longer than 32 characters, but require that they be no longer than
   64 characters.

   Restricting descriptors and labels to 32 characters often conflicts
   with the recommendation that they be mnemonic and (for descriptors)
   with the requirement that they be unique (see RFC 2578, Section 3.1,
   and RFC 2579, Section 3).  It is the position of this document
   (ratified by common practice) that the SMIv2 recommendation to limit
   descriptors and labels to 32 characters SHOULD be set aside in favor
   of promoting uniqueness and clarity, and that automated tools such as
   MIB compilers SHOULD NOT generate warnings for violating it.

   Note that violations of the 64 character limit MUST NOT be ignored;
   they MUST be treated as errors.

//cmh

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Juergen Schoenwaelder [mailto:schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de]
> > Sent: vrijdag 13 december 2002 14:56
> > To: heard@pobox.com
> > Cc: mreview@ops.ietf.org
> > Subject: Re: Issue with MIB compilation requirement in "AD Review of
> > I-Ds" (http://www.ietf.org/ID-nits.html)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > >>>>> C M Heard writes:
> > 
> > Mike> I agree with you, and this is what I wrote:
> > 
> > :   Restricting descriptors and labels to 32 characters often conflicts
> > :   with the recommendation that they be mnemonic and (for descriptors)
> > :   the requirement that they be unique (see RFC 2578, Section 3.1).  The
> > :   SMIv2 recommendation to limit names to 32 characters SHOULD be set
> > :   aside when it comes in conflict with these considerations.
> > 
> > What about this text:
> > 
> >     The SMIv2 recommends that descriptors and names are not longer
> >     than 32 characters (RFC 2578 section 3.1 and RFC 2579 section
> >     3). This recommendation often conflicts with the recommendation
> >     that names and descriptors be mnemonic and that they be unique.
> >     When it comes to a conflict between these recommendations, it is
> >     common practice that the 32 character limit is set aside in favour
> >     of uniqueness and clarity of names and descriptors. This document
> >     therefore suggests that the 32 character length recommendation can
> >     be safely ignored. This does of course not affect the upper limit
> >     of 64 characters for names and descriptors, which continues to
> >     exist.
> > 
> > Not sure this is much better, probably just different. I think it is
> > important to refer to the same rule in RFC 2579 (that is what I
> > added). I also wanted to express that it is safe to ignore this 32
> > character rule in all cases (such as if it would have never been part
> > of SMIv2) while your text sounds a bit more like a conditional
> > statement (and compilers usually have a hard time to judge what a 
> > good mnemonic name is).
> > 
> > /js
> > 
> > -- 
> > Juergen Schoenwaelder    
> <http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/schoenw/>