Subject: [SIP] words of 2543

From: "farhan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 12:39:16 +0530

i dunno if i am being a little brash here. but the interpretation of 2543 is
becoming more and more complex. each word within 2543 text seems to carry an
enormous amount of thought and behavourial pattern with it.

while as a text, 2543 is pretty good and solid, it is an extremely tough
read. i guess that it is written as if it were a program. it stays away from
explaining things lets implicit remain implicit and does not point out to
the pitfalls within.  that was one of the reasons why i had earlier raised
the issue of documenting an implementor's FAQ.

most of the issues raised in this list are answered by dr. schulzrinne or
dr. rosenberg lucidly and clearly until they are asked again. i guess that
is must be pretty boring for them to keep explaining the same points over
and over again.

sip is simple. but some discussions make it seem like a legal discussion of
some arcane statute of british colonial law (well i have had those too,
while working on a law database). lately, i have discovered that grepping
through the archives of this list usually answer most of the questions.

however, my basic issue still remains. sip text - the 2543 remains an
enigmatic protocol specification for the present. it requires someone to
mentor you before you can implement it. this is as opposed to a protocol
like SMTP which you can figure out yourself. i am speaking from personal
experience. a few weeks ago (before i discovered this list), i was sure that
i had implemented the minimal protocol. now i am sure that i am 20% done.

the other reason for confusion is that there is no reference implementation
that is small enough to be easily understood by newbies. i was lucky to get
the vovida stack (thanks duan!) by post. however, it is an intimidating
system to understand. i know that there are people out there who have
written simpler stacks and taken them to the bakeoffs. i urge these gurus to
place parts (if not the complete code) of their stacks on the web. software
is best described in programming languages and not in English.

finally, there is still a need for a document that describes in details all
the nitty gritty of implementing sip (like the illustrating tcp vol I and
II). sip is as complex a protocol as tcp with far more involved issues of
routing, proxying and interpreting headers than tcp  it will certainly
require an easier text that the 2543. possibly a whole book (or two).

- farhan

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