Matthew Pounsett wrote:
there's a carrier wave in that time series, which has its own wave
form. at the end of each epoch, we'll be back where we are today,
without a coherent or complete document set. we'd be moving from
failing to plan, to planning to fail. let's make a better move.
That's a pretty cynical view. Do you not think the specifications being
written today are better than they used to be?
mine have gotten better, but are still not as good as 1033, 1034, and
1035 were. i won't speak to my perception of the quality of others'
work. however, i have noticed that each DNS-related IETF WG has had
times of high process discipline and times of expediency -- and i think
that's because we're doing it with humans, and i know that we will
continue to do this with humans. i don't experience this as cynicism.
to achieve the goals you stated earlier, there would have to be both
the time series of changes, and the timeless document full of
lineouts. bert's "DNS Illustrated" github site is an example of the
latter, and a starting point for it, if we wish.
If we had a better baseline, and if our Updates documents were clearer
about what they change in older documents, that line-out would be a
pretty trivial document to maintain, and might not even be necessary.
that supposition depends on what the future DNS-related WG's are, who
chairs them, who attends meetings, what the culture is, who the AD's
are, who the rest of the IESG and IAB are... many things we cannot
predict now and will not be able to control then.
furthermore, the IETF would have to update some STD document every time
a new DNS-related RFC was published, just to enumerate the full set of
things a new implementer should study and consider. that STD could be
just a list of RFC's, or could mention specific sections and say they
are "in" or "out", or could repeat the relevant text. i could argue for
any of those three approaches. but your model requires one of those, or
else, "read them all and let the market sort it out" is our guidance to
new implementers. that's what's not working now, and won't work, ever.
--
P Vixie
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