Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!emory!dtscp1!scott
From: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C news compatibility (was Re: Patch dates or Patch Numbers)
Message-ID: <913@dtscp1.UUCP>
Date: 22 Aug 89 17:36:06 GMT
References: <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp> <6717@dayton.UUCP> <3536@epimass.EPI.COM> <64229@uunet.UU.NET>
Reply-To: scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman)
Organization: Digital Transmission Systems (a subsidiary of DCA), Duluth, GA
Lines: 37

In article <64229@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>Yes Bnews has bugs. no doubt about it.
Show me software that doesn't have bugs and I'll show you obsolete software! :-)

>My point is that blindly relying on the rfc is not good. blindly
>relying on a particular piece of code is  not good.
>
>If you discover a case that the RFC doesnt fully handle or that
>differs from the bnews code, ASK someone what the intent was.  Dont
>go your own way.

I've been watching this argument and trying to find some that I've been
in in the news.* concerning standards.  (I am not trying to dredge that
argument up again, but I am using it for illustration)  I wanted to know
why headers, etc. were the way they were and all I got many very high
flames telling me to read the RFC.  I changed the question and was told
to read the RFC.  Even when I questioned what RFC stood for, I was
emphatically told that it is the standard.

Now (and I am making this naieve sounding on purpose), the same person
who told me to think of RFC standing for "Requirements for Compliance"
when I said I had a problem with the name is saying *NOT* to follow the
RFC because it is wrong!  This leads to the question what other RFCs are
wrong?  Are the RFCs standards or are selected ones standards at the
whim of the author?  Where are the lines drawn?

Rick, I am *not* "against" you, but something you said does bother me.
Something that was written four years ago and updated 1.6 (whatever)
years ago is 1.6 years old.  If Websters updates their dictionary in
1988, the dictionary is one year old, not the age of it from when the
word "radio" first appeared.  If that 1987 released RFC is not correct,
then maybe an update is in order.  But either way, it is a document
udated and realased in 1987 not 1985!

-- 
scott barman
{gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott