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From: piet@cwi.nl (Piet Beertema)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway
Subject: Re: Avoid blanks...
Message-ID: <8809190806.AA11069@sering.cwi.nl>
Date: 19 Sep 88 11:06:29 GMT
References: <1628:grimm@darmstadt.gmd.dbp.de>
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		Unfortunately it's often not the technical, but the
		political people who make the decisions. The British
		choice of "gold 400" *with* a blank in it is a good
		example.
	Blanks are allowed in attributes because they make sense in written
	language. Think for attributes like locality or common name, it MUST
	be possible to express something like "stateName=United States of America".
Why should that be possible? I fail to see any technical reason
for having to use an elaborate attribute like that rather than
the much more common "stateName=USA" in you example. I can think
of lots of political reasons for the long form though.
I only can see a striking resemblance with the domain notation,
where ordinary users for obvious reasons use the "short form"
only, the "long form" almost never being used and meant only to
satisfy governing boards and that sort of people...

	From this point of view (from the human language upon the computer
	applications) the British choice for the blank is quite natural.
In what way is "gold 400" any better than "gold400"???


	Piet