
Just because it's an Internet Draft doesn't mean anything at all (2014) - UkiahSmith
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-wkumari-not-a-draft-06
======
Angostura
I contained my snarfing until:

"The ordinals 17, 42 and 6.12 are reserved to reduce confusion.

The ordinals 18 and 19 are reserved for the strings "Reserved" and
"Unassigned" respectively.

Unfortunately the ordinal 20 was used by two earlier, competing proposals, and
so can mean either "Color" or Colour". Implementations are encouraged to
disambiguate based upon context."

At which point I audibly snarfed.

~~~
oh-4-fucks-sake
Your snarfing was the impetus for my snarf. Ergo, not all snarfing originates
from user Angostura, but all of user Angostura's snarfing has historically
beget my snarfs.

------
ilkkao
"This all worked really well until approximately 1600BCE, at which time the
fleeing Atlanteans brought mass quantities of lightly tanned eel leather into
Egypt, causing the collapse of straight razor sharpening market."

I really admire people who can write a story like this off the top of their
head.

~~~
nateburke
Children love to listen to people with this skill.

~~~
nannal
I love to listen to people with this skill.

~~~
frandroid
therefore...

~~~
mzzter
Children are I

~~~
dagav
It does not follow

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_m...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle)

------
bmmayer1
"Unlike most IETF efforts, this document is not embarrassed to clearly state
that we are simply shuffling more stuff in while we have the editor open."

Classic.

------
tyingq
I thought that was already fairly well known via things like "IP over Avian
Carriers".

~~~
mhandley
But that's an RFC, so it carries (very slightly) more weight than an Internet
Draft. In the real world, what matters is whether it's implemented:
[https://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/writeup/](https://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/writeup/)

~~~
oefrha
> In the real world, what matters is whether it's implemented

Yes, RFC 2324[1] is also serious business because it’s implemented in the real
world. Or at least I have implemented HTTP 418 I’m a teapot. (I’ve also seen
gross violations where some APIs use HTTP 418 as their custom error code
instead of complying with the RFC.)

[1]
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324#section-2.3.2](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324#section-2.3.2)

~~~
pc86
> _I 've also seen gross violations where some APIs use HTTP 418 as their
> custom error code instead of complying with the RFC._

I know a lot of people disagree with the IETF's policy of imprisoning those
who fail to comply with the RFC, but personally I don't think they go far
enough.

------
paulddraper
To be fair, that's also true of RFCs as. (E.g., IP over carrier pigeon). But
that doesn't really matter.

Take HTTP for example. The is no ISO standard, just a smattering of
overlapping RFCs over the years with weird spellings (Referer) and ambiguities
(GET request entity).

 _And the entire web is based on HTTP._

The quality of the "specification" documents is not high, nor very official,
but it's the best we have, so people treat it as if it were.

~~~
skrebbel
I'd like to also share the legendary RFC 2795 for those not yet in the know:
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2795](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2795)

------
iudqnolq
> From -02 to -03

> o This Change note was added. Nothing else changed.

This comment contains no commentary.

------
ucarion
In addition to the point made in the article, even some RFCs do not indicate
"what the IETF thinks". And I'm not just talking about April 1st RFCs.

The IETF has the "Independent Submission Editor" stream of RFCs, which
produces RFCs without getting IETF consensus. These RFCs are considered to be
work "outside" of the IETF, but can still be published as an RFC.

A recent example is
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8674](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8674)
from Mark Nottingham:

    
    
       The mechanism described in this document does not have IETF consensus
       and is not a standard.  It is a widely deployed approach that has
       turned out to be useful and is presented here so that server and
       browser implementations can have a common understanding of how it
       operates.

------
cryptica
RFCs are just a way for big corporations to collaborate on shared standards.
It doesn't mean that other approaches can't become standards as well. It's
kind of disturbing that RFCs seem to give projects automatic trustworthiness
that they didn't actually earn.

~~~
dsr_
At least more than one interested party thought about it, and documented the
result. It might not be good, but it's worth evaluating to see if it's good
enough.

Tldr: if you must send datagrams via pigeons, consider the rfc, then use an
exfat microsd card.

------
sourcesmith
But it's expired...

~~~
marcosdumay
That's the sole reason you shouldn't use it as reference.

~~~
ferzul
On the contrary; it permits it. Since its purpose was to prevant
misattribution of internet-drafts to the ietf, we can surely now claim with
certainty that the ietf teaches fake news about the demise of ancient egypt.

------
RegW
> Each one of there tokens ...

What are "there tokens"? Aw come on. How do you expect me to take any of this
seriously with grammatical mistakes like this?

~~~
wkumari
Thank you for your review and comment. This oversight has been fixed, and new
version posted: [https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-wkumari-not-a-
draft-08.txt](https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-wkumari-not-a-draft-08.txt)

I'm planning on putting this on GitHub soon, so that issues can be filed, and,
more importantly, pull requests submitted. Important work....

------
gjm11
If HN guidelines are considered to allow it, I suggest tweaking the title here
to say "Internet Draft" rather than just "ID", which is unambiguous in the
original context (i.e., a thing that actually _is_ an Internet Draft) but not
as an HN title.

~~~
shhsshs
Agreed, the title mislead me to think the article would be about unique
identifiers (IDs) instead of internet drafts (IDs).

