- From: Jim Gettys <jg@pa.dec.com>
- Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:21:02 -0800
- To: Stef@nma.com
- Cc: IETF working group on HTML in e-mail <mhtml@segate.sunet.se>, http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
Well, the problem is that there is no "Guide to Developing Internet protocols" document that I've seen, that sets out enough of the lore required. The closest I've seen is an Internet Draft, that I saw some months ago, on application protocols; it was about 80% correct, but incomplete. (I don't have the reference handy)... It drew some conclusions I don't think were warranted: e.g. text protocols are good, while the real point is that protocols should be designed for extensibility up front, whether text or binary based. It happens that text protocols (e.g. RFC 822 decendends) are often easy to extend (at least in certain ways, as HTTP has been finding out, hard to extend in some other ways); we have another set of lessons that we've been learning the hard way. As author of a binary applications protocol that has been extended in many, many ways successfully, that is the real lesson (note that the X Window System lacked a formal extension mechanism until Version 11; thankfully, we were able to kill all older versions of X, and survived to tell the tale). I think it would be worthwhile to have such a document, and would be willing to help raise it as an issue with the IAB. Ultimately, it is the kind of guidance that the IAB should provide (or endorse someone's attempt at such guidance). - Jim It would be good for such a document to try to collect the lore of Internet Protocol design to help out newcomers... - Jim -- Jim Gettys Industry Standards and Consortia Digital Equipment Corporation Visting Scientist, World Wide Web Consortium, M.I.T. http://www.w3.org/People/Gettys/ jg@w3.org, jg@pa.dec.com
Received on Monday, 26 January 1998 14:23:42 UTC