Subject: Re: A modest proposal

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:05:21 +0100

Hi Bill,

I agree that we need to look into this issue of writting RFCs that had
difficulties in understanding and implementations. I mentioned before
some comment regarding 2119 to help. Please suggest your comments on
the RFC3261 and post them on this list, I RECOMMEND to update this RFC
if you see it is not suitable for well implementation. If you don't
want to update the RFC some will like to but we need to see your
specific comments that should be updated on the RFC3261. I like the
choice of implementing in C and don't think the coding language makes
much difference if you got difficulties to understand the RFC authors.
However, don't blaim the authors to punish they were doing their best,
but blaim the current AD or IETF management if they don't do nothing
after reading your input.

 I RECOMMEND that participant SHOULD report in IETF the interop tests
if any done and/or report problems of implementation as informational
I-Ds. Thanks for your information,

AB

+++++++++
On Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:57:22 -0500

I've recent had to write a program to interface with a SIP lync server
and in doing so have had to code to several rfcs.  After reading and
dealing with implementation of the various rfcs I have read I have
come up with what I consider "A modest proposal" to fix some of the
problems I've seen with implementing a rfc.  I think anyone who writes
a rfc should have to provide a working ANSI/C or GNU/C implementation
of the rfc in question.  Specifically, I have worked with the SIP rfc
(rfc 3261) and have come to the conclusion that whoever wrote the rfc
has never coded a day in their life.  Whoever thought it was a good
idea to allow multiple ways of doing the same exact thing would
hopefully be deterred by actually writing code to do it.  I think a
suitable punishment for those people would be to write each way of
writing a from header on a blackboard 100 times... this would actually
be less of the pain they've cause by making each writer of a SIP stack
handle each possible way of doing things.

Anyways, that is my modest proposal, please respond or I will be
forced to reply every day to this mailing list on each and every way
the SIP spec sucks one email at a time.  FYI I'm not sure if GNU/C is
the correct acronym, maybe its POSIX/C.

Regards,
Bill

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From: William Jordan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:19:17 -0500

Another reason I believe a code implementation of a rfc would be good is
understanding.  For me, it is sometimes easier to read an example of code
than to try to read through a rfc description of it.

Bill

---

From: Johnny Eriksson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:08:08 WET

William Jordan <[email-masked]> wrote:

> comma where random whitespaces are allowed.  Additionally, I can't
> understand why each line is terminated with <CR><LF>, why use two
> characters when one will do.

It is called NETASCII, and is the norm for text-based protocols.

It is a canonical end-of-line representation.

> Bill

--Johnny