One problem with excessively large fields, including variable length
addresses with a high maximum length, is that the next time someone
wants to encode some additional information, they just tuck it inside
that field in some quasi-proprietary way, instead of going to the
trouble of actually adding a field. Witness X.509 Certificate "serial
numbers", which are arbitrary precision integers, but which frequently
are used for a variety of information, all BER encoded...
Thanks,
Donald
=============================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
d3e3e3(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:35 PM, David Conrad <drc(_at_)virtualized(_dot_)org>
wrote:
On Aug 10, 2012, at 10:22 AM, "Andrew G. Malis"
<agmalis(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
Another alternative is self-describing variable-length addresses,
again do it once and we'll never have to worry about it again.
Heretic! That's OSI speak! Why do you hate the Internet you ISO/ITU
lackey?!?
</flashback>
Yeah, variable-length addresses would have been nice. There was even working
code. Maybe next IPng.
Regards,
-drc