Re: Idea for a process experiment to reward running code...

[Elwyn Davies <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

On Mon, 2012-12-03 at 11:02 +0000, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> On 03/12/2012 06:01, Martin J. Dürst wrote:
> > One of the advantages of a standards organization such as the IETF is
> > cross-concern review. For the IETF, one very strong cross-concern is
> > security. Another one (also for my personally) is internationalization.
> > Another, more vague one, is general architecture. Early running code is
> > very often (not always) characterized by the fact that such
> > cross-concerns are actively or passively ignored.
> 
> An excellent point. The fact that a hack works, and can be implemented,
> does not alter the fact that it's a hack. This is the sort of thing that
> cross-area review is supposed to look for. As a gen-art reviewer, I am
> sometimes surprised by what gets through to Last Call in the regular
> process - if the whole review process is squeezed down to a couple
> of weeks, we will definitely miss cross-area issues.

I also have the experience as a gen-art reviewer of seeing some pretty
awful pieces of work making through even to IESG review.  

However, I don't think that a short last call cycle need necessarily
compromise cross-area review. There has always been the possibility for
authors or wg chairs to request a early gen-art review with a view to
checking out whether something is in good shape cross-area and for
non-specialists.  This facility is not much used (I think I have done 3
in 8 years on the gen-art team) but it is there, and I guess the team
could cope with a few more since it doesn't drastically alter the total
workload. So it would be entirely possible for a draft that might be
fast-tracked to get some early review.

Given that there is also open source code, reviewers have the chance to
take a look at that and see the degree of hackiness involved.  

So I'd be for trying the experiment - and asking some cross-area
reviewers to take an early sniff.

Regards,
Elwyn

> 
> Encouraging running code is a Good Thing. Publishing sloppy specifications
> is a Bad Thing.
> 
> The Interop show network used to be a Very Good Thing. We've lost that,
> though I was delighted to see some actual running code at Bits-n-Bytes
> in Atlanta. More please. Maybe a prize for Best Demo?
> 
>    Brian
> 
> > 
> > I had a look at your draft and checked for "security" and
> > "internationalization", but only found the former, and not not in a
> > discussion about how this proposal would make sure that cross-concerns
> > are adequately addressed.
> > 
> > Regards,   Martin.
> > 
> > On 2012/12/02 5:12, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I've just posted an idea [1] for a small process improvement.
> >> If it doesn't seem crazy I'll try pursue it with the IESG as
> >> an RFC 3933 process experiment. If its universally hated then
> >> that's fine, it can die.
> >>
> >> The IESG have seen (more-or-less) this already but it hasn't
> >> be discussed, so this is just a proposal from me and has no
> >> "official" status whatsoever.
> >>
> >> Any comments, suggestions or better ideas are very welcome.
> >> Feel free to send me comments off list for now, or on this
> >> list I guess. If there's loads of email (always possible,
> >> this being a process thing;-) we can move to some other list.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Stephen.
> >>
> >> [1] http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-farrell-ft
> >>
> > 
>