Why does it take so long?

[jcowan at reutershealth.com]

Mark Davis scripsit:

> Well, a problem with the old grammar is that it constantly needed to be updated
> with the registrations in order to know what was valid.

Well, no.  The grammar is dictated by RFC 3066 and hasn't changed much from
RFC 1766, except for allowing digits.  The list of valid tags is a different
thing, and I wouldn't advise anybody to try to keep a list of valid tags and
reject the invalid, since no reasonable application can do anything with
every valid tag, or (typically) even with every valid and meaningful tag.

> The only issue, I think, with old grammars would be the addition of % and . in
> the extensions -- so that we can discuss.

I don't understand the purpose of full stop.  Since tags and values must
alternate in an extension, it seems to me that hyphus would serve the same purpose.
Another tactic would be to simply say that everything after x- is private use
rather than creating a structure of name.value-name.value-...

Do we really need full Unicode in private-use stuff?  If not, % is also
dispensable.

-- 
John Cowan    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan   <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
    "Any legal document draws most of its meaning from context.  A telegram
    that says 'SELL HUNDRED THOUSAND SHARES IBM SHORT' (only 190 bits in
    5-bit Baudot code plus appropriate headers) is as good a legal document
    as any, even sans digital signature." --me