According to ISO Directives part 2, fifth Edition 2004, Annex H page 65, it is not recommended to use "must" as an alternative to "shall". A text search an inspection of part 4 reveals 370 instance, where the specification have used "must" as an alternative to "shall"
This evaluation should also be conducted on the remaining parts of the specification. The initial investigation shows, that only part 5 seems to error-pruned for the word "must"
While this could be perceived as a minor error it indicates the lack of basic prof-reading of the specification, and add to the overall impression of an unfinished document, which have been submitted before basic editorial work was conducted on the specification. While we understand the time-pressure, in which the ECMA TC-45 have finished a document in such large proportion we find it unacceptable that the review-period is used to identify such minor but important error-correction. One would expect a professional organisation like ECMA to conduct a more rigid quality-review before submitting specification to ISO/EIC fasttrack processing, but it appears that this is not the case with the ECMA-376 specification.
This evaluation should also be conducted on the remaining parts of the specification. The initial investigation shows, that only part 5 seems to error-pruned for the word "must"
While this could be perceived as a minor error it indicates the lack of basic prof-reading of the specification, and add to the overall impression of an unfinished document, which have been submitted before basic editorial work was conducted on the specification. While we understand the time-pressure, in which the ECMA TC-45 have finished a document in such large proportion we find it unacceptable that the review-period is used to identify such minor but important error-correction. One would expect a professional organisation like ECMA to conduct a more rigid quality-review before submitting specification to ISO/EIC fasttrack processing, but it appears that this is not the case with the ECMA-376 specification.
I recommend a thorough review of the whole text, and to ensure, that the text is in line with ISO/EIC recommendation and requirements, as described in ISO/EIC Directives Part 2, fifth Edition 2004, Annex H page 65
Part 4
Ed
Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment DK-0076 (Modified: 2007-12-14) Agreed; some uses of “shall,” “may,” and so on, are inconsistent. Rather than enumerate all places that need changes in this response, general comments on such usage will be addressed in an editorial pass over all parts. This editorial pass will address the comments as follows: The word shall will be used to indicate requirements even if a feature is optional. As a deprecated feature is not optional, the use of shall in such a context makes sense. The word may will be replaced by can or might, as appropriate. The use of may is especially problematic in the negative; does may not mean cannot or might not? These instances will be carefully reviewed and changed. The word must will only be used in informative contexts, never instead of shall. Regarding the use of will and an alternate tense usage, this change will be made. Similar Comments: AU-0007 , DE-0042 , ECMA-0018 , GB-0014 , JP-0006 , JP-0007 , JP-0008
