Re: Running Code

[Andy Bierman <andy at netconfcentral.com>]

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> On 3/3/09 9:08 PM, Masataka Ohta wrote:
> > Andy Bierman wrote:
> >
> > > Since the goal of our work is to produce specifications
> > > that will allow multiple independent implementations to
> > > inter-operate successfully,
> > How can you define successful interoperation of implementations?

You gather implementation reports.
You conduct interoperability tests and bake-offs.
This used to happen a lot more, back when advancing
to Draft or Full Standard was considered important.


> IMHO you define it by "running code" -- that is, code which is used to
> run a functioning communications network. For me the canonical example
> is the medium we're using right now: email. In general (there are always
> exceptions!), you don't know or care what email clients people use, what
> email servers they use, whether they retrieve their email using POP or
> IMAP, etc. It just works, at least for the core use cases. And I think
> that's why running code (not just compiling code or functioning code,
> but a working network) is so important.
>
> Peter

Andy