Re: [arch-d] I-D Action: draft-iab-for-the-users-01.txt

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

> On 18 Nov 2019, at 9:29 am, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> There's a lot of good stuff in this draft. Just one point caught my eye:
> 
>> 4.6.  Deprioritising Internal Needs
>> 
>>  There are a number of needs that are very visible to us as
>>  specification authors, but should explicitly not be prioritised over
>>  the needs of end users.
>> 
>>  These include: convenience for document editors, IETF process
>>  matters, and "architectural purity".
> 
> I suggest making the last point: "architectural purity" for its own sake.
> There are certainly many cases where the argument *for* architectural
> purity is the principle of least astonishment, which directly benefits
> the user experience.

Current “user needs” aren’t always benefit the system as a whole nor the needs of users in the future.

"Architectural purity” can be (and should be) representing the latter and need not be considered “internal”.

> Another point that occurs to me is whether the draft should say something
> about user interface issues. Of course that topic is out of IETF scope,

I’m trying to understand how that makes any sense for a group that is writing about protocols and communication architectures.

I’m assuming it comes from the “the API is out of scope” error that was made many years ago - which confuses the API *instance* with the upper layer interface architecture. RFC793 gives a great example of the latter (the abstract “user commands’). In subsequent work, the absence of that interface as IETF work was a mistake.

I hope this doc isn’t trying to propagate that error.

Joe