Keith Moore <moore(_at_)network-heretics(_dot_)com> writes:
Just think how much easier the IPv4 to IPv6 transition would have
been if nothing above the IP layer cared exactly what an IP
address looks like or how big it is.
It wouldn't have made much difference at all,
Wow. I find this statement simply astonishing.
IMO, one of the biggest challenges surrounding IPv6
adoption/deployment is that all applications are potentially impacted,
and each and everyone one of them needs to be explicitely enabled to
work with IPv6. That is a huge challenge, starting with the
observation that there are a bazillion deployed applications that will
NEVER be upgraded.
Boy, wouldn't it be nice of all we had to do was IPv6-enable the
underlying network and stack (along with key OS support routines and
middleware) and have existing apps work over IPv6, oblivious to IPv4
vs. IPv6 underneath.
And, if one wants to look back and see "could we have done it
differently", go back to the BSD folk that came up with the socket
API. It was designed to support multiple network stacks precisely
because at that point in time, there were many, and TCP/IP was
certainly not pre-ordained. But that API makes addresses visible to
APIs. And it is widely used today.
Wouldn't it have been nice if the de facto APIs in use today were more
along the lines of ConnectTo(DNS name, service/port).
Thomas
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