ietf-822
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Re: Fwd: I-D ACTION:draft-klyne-msghdr-registry-02.txt

2002-01-31 14:06:05

On 1/31/02 at 3:23 PM -0500, Keith Moore wrote:

I don't know where you get the idea that x-headers have been quite a problem. As far as I can tell, they've been quite successful.

Offhand I cannot think of a single read/write X- field that has become a de facto standard...

X-Priority immediately comes to mind. X-Face is another. And these are perfect examples of the problem: They define perfectly useful or interesting pieces of data, they are in widespread use, but the format of the fields cannot be documented because some bozo chose to name them with an X-. But even write-only fields are a problem: I can't document for someone what exactly to put in X-Mailer because it starts with an X-. That's a terrible state of affairs and a serious problem.

...but I can think of several X- fields that are really bad ideas and which should never have been deployed even in a single implementation. But at least they're easily distinguished from other fields. OTOH, most of the poorly designed fields that have gained wide deployment don't start with X-.

But that's the point: You can't distinguish useful/good fields from bogus/bad fields just by seeing if they start with an X-. And in fact, if people would just register a field that they are about to deploy, they would likely get some immediate feedback of its boneheadedness when they go to document it.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
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