http://www.silvergames.com/game/quake-flash/

*is impressed*

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook wrote:
> http://www.silvergames.com/game/quake-flash/
> 

For the record, I don't think Flash is good for youtube ;)

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> http://www.silvergames.com/game/quake-flash/
>
> *is impressed*

This is great!

Post a reply to this message

On 11/25/09 17:53, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> http://www.silvergames.com/game/quake-flash/
>>
>
> For the record, I don't think Flash is good for youtube ;)

	I concur. There's a site out there that converts (live, I believe), 
whatever video you wish to watch to something that is HTML5 compliant, 
so that if you have a decent browser, it will play it without the need 
for plugins. In Linux, that's a Good Thing because it means your CPU 
won't be hogged.

	Unfortunately, last time I looked at it, it didn't work with Firefox as 
FF only supported Ogg, or something similar. Works on some other 
browsers, though.

-- 
ASCII and ye shall receive.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> something that is HTML5 compliant, 
> if you have a decent browser, it will play it
> it didn't work with Firefox 

Implying neither of the two major browsers (IE, Firefox) are decent.

I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle your 
newfangled HTML5 compliant format.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook wrote:
> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle your 
> newfangled HTML5 compliant format.

After having participated in the IETF, where nothing is a standard until 
there are two independent interoperating implementations available to the 
public, I always find W3C's standard process rather amusing.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   You know the kamikaze monsters in Serious Sam
     with the bombs for hands, that go AAAAAHHHHHHHH!
   I want that for a ring tone.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle 
>> your newfangled HTML5 compliant format.
> 
> After having participated in the IETF, where nothing is a standard until 
> there are two independent interoperating implementations available to 
> the public, I always find W3C's standard process rather amusing.
> 
Except for the minor issue that they are trying to describe a standard, 
while everyone else is... well, lets just say that interoperable in this 
context doesn't seem to mean, "Actually works the same in both 
implementations". lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Tim Cook wrote:
>>> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle 
>>> your newfangled HTML5 compliant format.
>>
>> After having participated in the IETF, where nothing is a standard 
>> until there are two independent interoperating implementations 
>> available to the public, I always find W3C's standard process rather 
>> amusing.
>>
> Except for the minor issue that they are trying to describe a standard, 

*Who* is trying to describe a standard?  W3C seems to make up "standards" 
out of whole cloth, and then people get upset when those who are already 
following de facto standards don't switch to use W3C's poorly thought-out 
messes and make themselves unmarketable commodities at the same time.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   You know the kamikaze monsters in Serious Sam
     with the bombs for hands, that go AAAAAHHHHHHHH!
   I want that for a ring tone.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/25/09 19:47, Tim Cook wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> something that is HTML5 compliant, if you have a decent browser, it
>> will play it
>> it didn't work with Firefox
>
> Implying neither of the two major browsers (IE, Firefox) are decent.
>
> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle your
> newfangled HTML5 compliant format.

	At least the HTML5 compliant format works properly, when it works. 
Unlike the Flash plugin.


-- 
When a person criticizes another's stance as irrational, it is merely a 
statement that he/she lacks the reasoning ability to comprehend the other.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> *Who* is trying to describe a standard?  W3C seems to make up 
> "standards" out of whole cloth, and then people get upset when those who 
> are already following de facto standards don't switch to use W3C's 
> poorly thought-out messes and make themselves unmarketable commodities 
> at the same time.

 From what I've seen, the W3C standards are _mostly_ reasonable, whereas 
the ad-hoc made-up stuff that browser implementors come up with is a 
nightmare.

Then again, W3C does from time to time come up with a few questionable 
design decisions.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:

>     Unfortunately, last time I looked at it, it didn't work with Firefox 
> as FF only supported Ogg, or something similar. Works on some other 
> browsers, though.

You know that Ogg is only a container format, not a codec, right? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4b0e1e2a$1@news.povray.org...
> On 11/25/09 19:47, Tim Cook wrote:

> > I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle your
> > newfangled HTML5 compliant format.

> At least the HTML5 compliant format works properly, when it works.
> Unlike the Flash plugin.

Are you saying Flash plugin doesn't work properly, when it works?

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook wrote:
> http://www.silvergames.com/game/quake-flash/
> 
> *is impressed*
> 

To be noted, this didn't work for me. It loaded for a while, after that
it just showed me black screen.

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

On 11/26/09 04:39, somebody wrote:
>> At least the HTML5 compliant format works properly, when it works.
>> Unlike the Flash plugin.
>
> Are you saying Flash plugin doesn't work properly, when it works?

	Yep. See discussion on it consuming your CPU when you full screen 
hi-def on Linux.

	That was essentially the appeal for that site - it would bypass the 
plugin and many Linux users would finally get full screen video that 
isn't jerky.

-- 
Death is proven to be 99.9% fatal to all laboratory rats.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/26/09 03:40, Invisible wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, last time I looked at it, it didn't work with Firefox
>> as FF only supported Ogg, or something similar. Works on some other
>> browsers, though.
>
> You know that Ogg is only a container format, not a codec, right? ;-)

	Nitpick.<G>

	You can Google the codec up yourself. I'm too lazy. Is Vorbis a (video) 
codec?

-- 
Death is proven to be 99.9% fatal to all laboratory rats.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> *Who* is trying to describe a standard?  W3C seems to make up 
>> "standards" out of whole cloth, and then people get upset when those 
>> who are already following de facto standards don't switch to use W3C's 
>> poorly thought-out messes and make themselves unmarketable commodities 
>> at the same time.
> 
>  From what I've seen, the W3C standards are _mostly_ reasonable, whereas 
> the ad-hoc made-up stuff that browser implementors come up with is a 
> nightmare.
> 
Precisely.

> Then again, W3C does from time to time come up with a few questionable 
> design decisions.

Everyone is likely to do that. The real question is whether or not you 
have one central group that can both screw up an idea, but also fix it, 
or 5 different groups, which ***if you are lucky*** might be talking to 
each other this week, coming up with 2-3 sort of similar 
implementations. I think Darren is forgetting the insane mess that IE 
created "before" MS decided that actually following universal standards 
was a good idea, standards that are, to the best ability of the other 
browser makers, ***not*** based on their own loose and random standards, 
but one W3C standards.

The *real* problem isn't that they make up odd standards, its that they 
provide a few limited test pages to attempt to render, to match 
compliance with "some" features, but they have no actual system to show 
"how" the features are supposed to really interact to *get* that result. 
The effect being that even compliant browsers do things out of order, or 
incompletely, resulting in a *close*, but *failed* test. Worse, due to 
them being so interdependent, in some cases, one might be closer than 
another, but with one major flaw, while something else could have 
several minor flaws, but "look" more compliant, even though its not.

In that respect, I agree there is a nasty mess.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 11/26/09 04:39, somebody wrote:
>>> At least the HTML5 compliant format works properly, when it works.
>>> Unlike the Flash plugin.
>>
>> Are you saying Flash plugin doesn't work properly, when it works?
> 
>     Yep. See discussion on it consuming your CPU when you full screen 
> hi-def on Linux.
> 
>     That was essentially the appeal for that site - it would bypass the 
> plugin and many Linux users would finally get full screen video that 
> isn't jerky.
> 
I am 99% certain Flash is responsible for the times Firefox simply 
"refuses" to shut down, and its tendency to, if left Firefox is left 
open, to degrade the performance of the entire damn machine, over time, 
after playing a fairly small number of videos, on my Windows system too. 
Firefox hasn't done it "quite" so much since a new patch to fix a known 
issue *with* using Flash got fixed, but it still turns into a dog if you 
use Flash videos too much...

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to effectively peddle your
>> newfangled HTML5 compliant format.
> 
> After having participated in the IETF, where nothing is a standard until
> there are two independent interoperating implementations available to the
> public, I always find W3C's standard process rather amusing.

HTML5 is not W3C.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> You can Google the codec up yourself. I'm too lazy. Is Vorbis a (video)
> codec?

Vorbis is audio. Theora is video. Ogg is container.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
> 
>>     Unfortunately, last time I looked at it, it didn't work with Firefox
>> as FF only supported Ogg, or something similar. Works on some other
>> browsers, though.
> 
> You know that Ogg is only a container format, not a codec, right? ;-)

I was told by a ffmpeg developer that ogg is quite a crap container format, 
and that Matroska is way better. Of course, you're free to use it with 
Theora and Vorbis (the codecs usually used with Ogg).

Post a reply to this message

>> You know that Ogg is only a container format, not a codec, right? ;-)
> 
> I was told by a ffmpeg developer that ogg is quite a crap container format, 
> and that Matroska is way better. Of course, you're free to use it with 
> Theora and Vorbis (the codecs usually used with Ogg).

I've read the Ogg spec. Looks OK to me.

(Then again, the only other container format I know of is IFF...)

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
> > You can Google the codec up yourself. I'm too lazy. Is Vorbis a (video)
> > codec?

> Vorbis is audio. Theora is video. Ogg is container.

  And a codec is a piece of software, so it's nothing of those.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   And a codec is a piece of software, so it's nothing of those.

Really? I thought the term "codec" refers to the data format, and the 
algorithm for producing/consuming it? (I.e., the specification document 
is the codec, the software is an "implementation of" the codec, and any 
files using it are "uses of" the codec.)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   And a codec is a piece of software, so it's nothing of those.

> Really? I thought the term "codec" refers to the data format, and the 
> algorithm for producing/consuming it? (I.e., the specification document 
> is the codec, the software is an "implementation of" the codec, and any 
> files using it are "uses of" the codec.)

    "A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or
    decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a
    portmanteau (a blending of two or more words) of
    'compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, 'coder-decoder'."

  It's a piece of software (or hardware, if we are technical).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>>>   And a codec is a piece of software, so it's nothing of those.
> 
>> Really? I thought the term "codec" refers to the data format, and the 
>> algorithm for producing/consuming it? (I.e., the specification document 
>> is the codec, the software is an "implementation of" the codec, and any 
>> files using it are "uses of" the codec.)
> 
>     "A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or
>     decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a
>     portmanteau (a blending of two or more words) of
>     'compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, 'coder-decoder'."
> 
>   It's a piece of software (or hardware, if we are technical).

Mmm, interesting...

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> 
>   It's a piece of software (or hardware, if we are technical).
> 

And when it's a piece of hardware, it most probably is a piece on
software on that hardware ;-).

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> And when it's a piece of hardware, it most probably is a piece on
> software on that hardware ;-).

  With simpler codecs it could be hardwired, so no software.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
>> And when it's a piece of hardware, it most probably is a piece on
>> software on that hardware ;-).
> 
>   With simpler codecs it could be hardwired, so no software.
> 

Well yes, it's possible - that's why "probably".

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>  From what I've seen, the W3C standards are _mostly_ reasonable, 

It would be mostly reasonable if W3C was actually implementing those things 
in their browser. A "mostly reasonable" standard can come out of a throughly 
broken standards process, and vice versa.

> the ad-hoc made-up stuff that browser implementors come up with is a 
> nightmare.

In part because W3C has a broken standards process that fails to account for 
how the world actually works.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> I think Darren is forgetting the insane mess

Not at all. I'm pointing out that the W3C has a broken standards process, 
not that what they come up with is bad, but that it isn't *standard*.

> that IE 
> created "before" MS decided that actually following universal standards 
> was a good idea, 

But they're not universal standards. For example, IE will only store 20 
cookies per site.  That's because that was the Mozilla standard. When W3C 
comes along and says "store more", and major business' web sites don't work 
with those "standard" browsers because W3C changed the universal standard to 
something "better" and then brow-beat all the others into following those 
standards, people blame IE for not getting with the program.

You can't constantly change standards that you expect a whole raft of people 
to implement and expect good results, no matter the quality of those standards.

 > standards that are, to the best ability of the other
> browser makers, ***not*** based on their own loose and random standards, 
> but one W3C standards.

Bzzzt.

> The *real* problem isn't that they make up odd standards, its that they 
> provide a few limited test pages to attempt to render, to match 
> compliance with "some" features, but they have no actual system to show 
> "how" the features are supposed to really interact to *get* that result. 

But that's exactly the problem with "making up standards". The broken 
standards process *is* the *cause* of what you describe.

If you said "nothing becomes an official web standard until three browsers 
implement it identically", you by definition wouldn't have this problem.

When's the last time you said "My ftp server won't talk to your FTP client"? 
Why? Because there were several interoperative implementations *before* it 
was a standard.  Sure, sometimes you get a mess like email address parsing, 
but that's the price you pay for interoperability.

The web really isn't mature enough to depend on all the cutting-edge 
pixel-perfect features that people want to use effortlessly. If it was, you 
wouldn't have a bunch of competing browsers constantly in the news, as they 
would all be commodities.

> In that respect, I agree there is a nasty mess.

It's no worse a mess than lots of other things. It's just that IETF has been 
doing it much longer and figured out the right way to make it work.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> HTML5 is not W3C.

Even worse. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   It's a piece of software (or hardware, if we are technical).

It is, technically, the inverse of a modem. A modem takes a digital signal 
and modulates/demodulates it to make it analog. A codec takes an analog 
signal and codes/decodes it to make it digital. Hence, it's not the 
standard, but the device or process of following the standards.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
>> And when it's a piece of hardware, it most probably is a piece on
>> software on that hardware ;-).
> 
>   With simpler codecs it could be hardwired, so no software.

The old "voice scramblers" were that way: a comb filter to select out a 
bunch of frequencies, frequency shiufters to move them around, and then 
something to combine them up again.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

>> the ad-hoc made-up stuff that browser implementors come up with is a 
>> nightmare.
> 
> In part because W3C has a broken standards process that fails to account 
> for how the world actually works.

Care to explain that one?

(I have no idea what the W3C standards process is. I just read the specs.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> If you said "nothing becomes an official web standard until three 
> browsers implement it identically", you by definition wouldn't have this 
> problem.

You also by definition wouldn't have any standards in the first place, 
because nobody would ever implement anything even slightly similarly.

> When's the last time you said "My ftp server won't talk to your FTP 
> client"? Why? Because there were several interoperative implementations 
> *before* it was a standard.

Have you *seen* the FTP spec? Sure it works, but it's _horrible_! >_<

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> You also by definition wouldn't have any standards in the first place, 
> because nobody would ever implement anything even slightly similarly.

Not true. Look at the IETF spec process.  There are proposed standards that 
just don't become standards until several people have implemented it 
similarly enough that they interoperate in all the ways required by the spec.

W3C looks at what's going on, says "this would be a better way, so everyone 
should change how they work things."

> Have you *seen* the FTP spec? Sure it works, but it's _horrible_! >_<

It's actually not too bad, overall. And it has evolved over time. It's *way* 
better than HTTP for example.

Even so, put it this way: How many browsers can't get to the web server 
(HTTP, an IETF standard), compared to the number of browsers that render the 
page incorrectly (HTML, a W3C standard)?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> the ad-hoc made-up stuff that browser implementors come up with is a 
>>> nightmare.
>>
>> In part because W3C has a broken standards process that fails to 
>> account for how the world actually works.
> 
> Care to explain that one?

They make stuff up, and then try to claim it's the standard. It's broken 
because there's no good reason for browsers that have already implemented 
things differently than what W3C later standardizes on to change.

> (I have no idea what the W3C standards process is. I just read the specs.)

Right. And what reason do you have to believe that *anyone* does or will 
follow those specs?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> When's the last time you said "My ftp server won't talk to your FTP 
> client"? Why? Because there were several interoperative implementations 
> *before* it was a standard.  Sure, sometimes you get a mess like email 
> address parsing, but that's the price you pay for interoperability.
> 

On a related side note.. Wish the twits would standardize all their 
bloody download redirects, which they now all seem to bloody use, for no 
apparent reason, on 90% of the sites which plugins/programs that attempt 
to help download, or redirect to a more reliable manager, or just do 
anything beyond passing the file to the browsers ftp/http file transfer 
system. A few have mangled things so badly you can't even *get* a file 
from them if you have something installed, about 50% of them you can't 
use the normal "just click", or wait for their page to script load it, 
because it triggers a set of events in things like FlashGot, which 
results in the download not even starting, and then, in about 20% of 
cases, and this "never" happened until the last 1-2 years, you get the 
file downloaded, but the "name" passed to the downloader is wrong. I.e., 
you end up with something like:

local name	source
get.php		www.somefileserver.dum/files/realname.zip

Part of this is the fault of the manager, mind you, which doesn't check 
to make sure the destination name and the source are the same, but 
seriously.. This isn't being done, as near as I can tell, to undermine 
download managers or plugins, its designed to help the site track who is 
downloading, in most cases, and its getting continuously worse over 
time. And if it was an issue with trying to stop things like getright, 
why not make a client with "most" of the same features, provide some 
standard way to say, "This can't be downloaded via multiple 
connections.", which is usually the problem they are trying to stop, or 
just *leave out* that feature, and make it work with every damn site? 
Problem solved. Instead you have unreliable managers in the browsers, 
which can and *have* failed to properly download a file on me, resume, 
if they even do that, unreliably, can't keep running if you close the 
browser, and provide "no" other features at all, including warning you 
of non-unique names, or redirecting specific file types to specific 
folders, or anything else that a real manager provides.

File transfers that don't involve a bare client, or bittorrent, are 
becoming increasingly stupid and unusable.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

>> (I have no idea what the W3C standards process is. I just read the 
>> specs.)
> 
> Right. And what reason do you have to believe that *anyone* does or will 
> follow those specs?

So what you're saying is that we should let somebody make up some 
mangled mess of a system, and then stamp it as a "standard", rather than 
designing something properly?

Stuff like making something like Flash a standard rather than designing 
SVG? And the single proprietry implementation should be the standard spec?

Isn't that exactly why everybody's so upset with the MS document "standard"?

(Not that your claims are unfounded - AFAIK, nobody has implemented the 
CSS3 drop shadow properties, for example. But then, that's a fairly 
dubious feature in the first place...)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> (I have no idea what the W3C standards process is. I just read the 
>>> specs.)
>>
>> Right. And what reason do you have to believe that *anyone* does or 
>> will follow those specs?
> 
> So what you're saying is that we should let somebody make up some 
> mangled mess of a system, and then stamp it as a "standard", rather than 
> designing something properly?

No. I'm saying that if you're going to standardize something, you should 
either standardize what people are already doing, or standardize what people 
aren't yet doing, rather than trying to "standardize" what people are 
already doing but in a different way.

And when you're trying to standardize communication mechanisms, you should 
probably strive to ensure interoperability, given that it's, you know, 
communication and all that.

> Stuff like making something like Flash a standard rather than designing 
> SVG? And the single proprietry implementation should be the standard spec?
> 
> Isn't that exactly why everybody's so upset with the MS document 
> "standard"?

You obviously missed the part where I mentions "multiple inteoperating 
implementations available to the public", right?

> (Not that your claims are unfounded - AFAIK, nobody has implemented the 
> CSS3 drop shadow properties, for example. But then, that's a fairly 
> dubious feature in the first place...)

That's exactly my point. Nobody follows the standard because they're 
prescriptive and made up out of whole cloth.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

>> So what you're saying is that we should let somebody make up some 
>> mangled mess of a system, and then stamp it as a "standard", rather 
>> than designing something properly?
> 
> No. I'm saying that if you're going to standardize something, you should 
> either standardize what people are already doing, or standardize what 
> people aren't yet doing, rather than trying to "standardize" what people 
> are already doing but in a different way.

Wait - so you're saying you should write the standard before people 
start trying to implement stuff?

That at least makes sense.

>> Stuff like making something like Flash a standard rather than 
>> designing SVG? And the single proprietry implementation should be the 
>> standard spec?
>>
>> Isn't that exactly why everybody's so upset with the MS document 
>> "standard"?
> 
> You obviously missed the part where I mentions "multiple inteoperating 
> implementations available to the public", right?

It just seems to me that the chances of (say) two companies both 
deciding to invent something like USB at the same time, and it being 
interoperable, are so vanishingly small as to not be worth even 
considering. You need a standard to work to or nothing will ever 
interoperate.

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Invisible wrote:
> Wait - so you're saying you should write the standard before people 
> start trying to implement stuff?

Or after it's already finished. One or the other. Don't try to standardize 
what's already widely deployed unless what you're standardizing is the parts 
that are common to everyone.

>> You obviously missed the part where I mentions "multiple inteoperating 
>> implementations available to the public", right?
> 
> It just seems to me that the chances of (say) two companies both 
> deciding to invent something like USB at the same time, and it being 
> interoperable, are so vanishingly small as to not be worth even 
> considering. You need a standard to work to or nothing will ever 
> interoperate.

No. They can work together to make the standard, and then not accept the 
standard as a standard until it's already working. That's the IETF and ISO 
standards process.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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>> It just seems to me that the chances of (say) two companies both 
>> deciding to invent something like USB at the same time, and it being 
>> interoperable, are so vanishingly small as to not be worth even 
>> considering. You need a standard to work to or nothing will ever 
>> interoperate.
> 
> No. They can work together to make the standard, and then not accept the 
> standard as a standard until it's already working. That's the IETF and 
> ISO standards process.

So... why is the finished standard specificstion called a "request for 
comments"? This has always bothered me...

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Invisible wrote:
> So... why is the finished standard specificstion called a "request for 
> comments"? This has always bothered me...

History. :-)  There are a number of phases it goes through, including 
proposal, draft standard, recommended standard, and (I think) required 
standard. There are also requests for comments that aren't intended to ever 
turn into standards.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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>> So... why is the finished standard specificstion called a "request for 
>> comments"? This has always bothered me...
> 
> History. :-)  There are a number of phases it goes through, including 
> proposal, draft standard, recommended standard, and (I think) required 
> standard. There are also requests for comments that aren't intended to 
> ever turn into standards.

And yet, if you look up the defintion of (say) the Routing Information 
Protocol, it's defined in RFC 2453. Which makes it sound like they're 
*requesting* people to comment on a possible standard, rather than 
*defining* a finished standard.

History, I guess. Much like the way that a parcel traveling by car is a 
shipment, and a parcel travelling by ship is cargo... ;-)

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Invisible wrote:
> And yet, if you look up the defintion of (say) the Routing Information 
> Protocol, it's defined in RFC 2453.  Which makes it sound like they're
> *requesting* people to comment on a possible standard, rather than 
> *defining* a finished standard.

They were, when it was an RFC. See the line lower down, where it
says "STD: 56"?  That's the standard. :-)

The things start as an RFC. When they're done adjusting to the comments 
received from the request, they get standardized, they get a number, and 
it's still the same RFC. It's just an RFC where nobody had any comments 
about it that weren't addressed. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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>> And yet, if you look up the defintion of (say) the Routing Information 
>> Protocol, it's defined in RFC 2453.  Which makes it sound like they're
>> *requesting* people to comment on a possible standard, rather than 
>> *defining* a finished standard.
> 
> They were, when it was an RFC. See the line lower down, where it
> says "STD: 56"?  That's the standard. :-)

And yet, they're always referred to by the RFC number. (I guess because 
it came first...)

> The things start as an RFC. When they're done adjusting to the comments 
> received from the request, they get standardized, they get a number, and 
> it's still the same RFC. It's just an RFC where nobody had any comments 
> about it that weren't addressed. :-)

Heh. I wonder if there are any RFCs where people said "hell, this is too 
stupid, let's forget the whole thing"?

Worryingly, RFC 2549 does *not* fall into this category...!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And yet, they're always referred to by the RFC number.

After they're published, yes. Before they're a standard, they don't have a 
number.

> Heh. I wonder if there are any RFCs where people said "hell, this is too 
> stupid, let's forget the whole thing"?

Yes. They don't get numbers, and they don't really stick around.

There's also RFCs that were "draft standards" that stick around but never 
move to the "standard" status.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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