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Re: Call for volunteers for C/C++ API liaison manager

Joe Touch <touch@isi.edu> Thu, 01 May 2014 16:50 UTC

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Date: Thu, 01 May 2014 09:49:20 -0700
From: Joe Touch <touch@isi.edu>
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To: Thomas Nadeau <tnadeau@lucidvision.com>
Subject: Re: Call for volunteers for C/C++ API liaison manager
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On 5/1/2014 8:26 AM, Thomas Nadeau wrote:
>
> On May 1, 2014:11:02 AM, at 11:02 AM, Joe Touch <touch@isi.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 5/1/2014 5:12 AM, Thomas Nadeau wrote:
>>>
>>> 	APIs are not that useful unless there is code behind them.
>>
>> Ultimately, yes. But the code represents an instance of the API.
>
> That depends on your perspective. These days the code IS the API, in
> particular open source code. Standards bodies do not need to define the
> APIs; implementation communities do that already. The IETF should
> probably stick to on-the-wire protocols.

A protocol is defined by:

	- internal state
	- message "on the wire" formats
	- upper layer events
	- lower layer events (message arrivals/departures)
	- time events

Leave any of the 6 above out and you have an incomplete spec.

The "on the wire" part is only a fraction of what's needed. If you don't 
believe that, then write a TCP implementation from the header format 
alone, and let's see how well it works.

Joe

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