On 5/23/24 15:47, John Scudder wrote:
Sometimes we should be brave enough to try new things. Maybe this is
one of those times?
I don't think bravery is the issue here. The question in my mind is,
does this actually help make IETF standards developed by this WG more
relevant to the Internet?
So far, I fail to see how it does.
Existence of independent prototype implementations is a nearly
necessary, but far from sufficient, condition, for ensuring that.
(I say "nearly" necessary because it's actually possible for a protocol
to be successful in market terms even if there's really only one
implementation - heck this is almost true for web browsers today.)
Or to put it in terms of bravery, sometimes we should be brave enough to
NOT do whatever strikes someone as a good idea, without first doing some
analysis to see whether it actually helps. And I mean no criticism of
whoever thought this was a good idea. But fundamentally the practice of
engineering is to use analysis to determine what will work well, BEFORE
it's actually implemented.
Keith
