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Re: Last Call: <draft-leiba-cotton-iana-5226bis-12.txt> (Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs) to Best Current Practice

2016-04-26 18:47:31
On 27/04/2016 08:28, Adrian Farrel wrote:
...
Section 6
Include hint on best practice for top and bottom of ranges.
OLD
     Reserved: Not assigned and not available for assignment.  Reserved
           values are held for special uses, such as to extend the
           namespace when it becomes exhausted.  Note that this is
           distinctly different from "Unassigned".
NEW
     Reserved: Not assigned and not available for assignment.  Reserved
           values are held for special uses, such as to extend the
           namespace when it becomes exhausted.  Note that this is
           distinctly different from "Unassigned".

          It is common practice for documents that define numeric registries
          to mark the zero value as "Reserved" because this often aids 
protocol 
          implementations.

I'm not sure about the "because" clause. It sounds a bit like an excuse for
sloppy coding. Defining it explicitly as a no-op would seem like better
practice in many cases.

   Brian

          It is also common practice to mark the maximum
          value as "Reserved" so that it can be used as part of a strategy to
          extend the registry if the range proves too small in the future.
END

Thanks,
Adrian