At 02:32 20/08/2005, Lisa Dusseault wrote:
On Aug 10, 2005, at 1:40 AM, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
I've been thinking about this on and off for a day, and I'm not
convinced that having running code at the time a specification is
first fleshed out would be all that helpful.
Can you point to any instance in recent IETF history (after 1995 or
2000 or so) where having having running code early in the process
would have made for a better _designed_ protocol?
Yes -- in the IMAPEXT WG we run into this frequently. In the past
year, implementation experience has led people to make useful
suggestions and find issues, as you can see on the mailing list Jun
1 and Jan 10 for example.
Also the *lack* of server implementations of the IMAPEXT annotations
draft is leading us to make better choices (I hope) about how
annotations are designed and how much of the feature is
required. It's hard to notice a lack of implementations unless the
regular situation is to have implementations. So I certainly
appreciate early implementations.
May I suggest a slightly different formulation for a "running
something culture": the needs seem to be architectural consistency
and technical inclusiveness. Architectural consistency should be the
respect of the Charter and technical inclusiveness is more a spirit,
a culture to look what exist or is projected (as status of the future
art) and try to accomodate it. This can be base on running code,
current usage, common thinking, common analysis, etc.
This is why I insist for these two aspects to be included in the
PROTO procedure. _every_ WG will have a problem with that two points
because WG are not simple technical writers of IESG/IAB respecting
100% of their Charter. This is precisely in the different between the
intent and the delivery that one can measure the WG value-added
(which as every change may be wrong) or possible bias - this may also
occur (RFC 3774).
In this I presuppose that IAB is the ultimate reference: it review
the Charter for consistency with the past and should ultimatey review
the deliverable for consistency with the "future" (all what has been
approved and is under practical implementation). I know some think
they know better but I think this should be covered with the IAB
itself. However I do not know the procedure.
jfc
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