Ken wrote:

> Thank you for your thoughtful reply. In my business the holy grail of
> specifications is the US Mil Specs. Barring available Mil Specs for a
> job we design by customer specifications or through I.E.E.E. specification.
> I then percieve the RFC to be basicaly a general consensus among those
> in the know about how basic internet protocols are to be handled in the
> absence of an "official" decree on the matter.
>

Actually, in the Internet world, the RFC's are the "official" decrees. It's just
that instead of some comitee sitting isolated in some little room and deciding
things that have little or no bearing on the real world, the work is done in
public, in full view of the entire world, and by anyone who cares to mess in it.
Thus the world takes them as the "authoritative" source of information. It's
somewhat like scientific peer-review taken to a much higher level.

Thus, when in the past when I've encountered a senior software archetect
responsible for crafting a client-server solution with Internet connectivity,
etc. who seriously asked "What's an RFC?", you can just imagine my reaction.

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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