----- Original Message ----- From: "William Jordan" <wjordan129@xxxxxxxxx> To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 4:57 AM > 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. I find your proposal puzzling as many of those involved in the creation of an RFC are experienced coders and do turn out implementations in short order. They know, they do not have to write the code, what is easy to code and what is not. If a choice is made, to have many alternatives, which increases the complexity of implementation, then that choice is made knowingly, in order to produce a protocol that will better meet the requirements. Code you write once, a successful implementation will execute a countless number of times; what matters is that the protocol works every time, not the length of the one off exercise to implement it beforehand. If you had said that you had found flaws in the logic of the protocol which could have been found by coding - and that does happen - then I think that your argument would carry more weight. Tom Petch > 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 >