At 08:18 PM 10/2/2004 -0700, ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com wrote:
Trying to develop fixed requirements in advance of development has
failed over and over and over again execpt in an extremely tightly
constrained environment, which e-mail sure isn't. The processes that
work are more like spirals, going between design, implementation, and
evaluation. But since we're trying to create a standard rather than
write a piece of software, we won't know for quite a while what the
results of future implementation and evaluation are. (I guess that's
why it works better to start with stuff that's been implemented, so we
have at a few turns of the spiral to look at.)
An approach that used to be common in the IETF was to build alongside
the specification process. Sadly, it seems that few have the resources
to do this any more.
At least 2 or 3 of the proposals mentioned in Dave's draft charter have
implementations which are being tested. We are definitely "building alongside
the specification process" here, and I think that's a very good thing. In this
problem space, I think it needs to be done a lot earlier than normal IETF
process dictates.
-Jim