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RFC 854: The thing you guys need to understand is that RFCs aren't...

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Comment by Devil's Advocate
Submitted on 7/11/2006
Related RFC: RFC 854
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The thing you guys need to understand is that RFCs aren't just some wanna-be helpful internet person's lame attempt to explain things, they're the actual, original, official document that defines the protocol; there is no higher authority to appeal to. Official specifications are special things. They can be garrulous or terse, but are rarely easy reads. They are necessarily very rigorous and formal. It is essential to know and understand the RFC if you're writing code that uses the protocol in question, but at the same time the RFC is not the place (and is not meant to be the place) to look for eludication and code samples. Although more examples of the protocol exchange would have been useful, and these do appear in other RFCs, it's 23 years too late now; like a government's constitution, this document was published in 1983 and cannot be directly altered. It can only be amended by other RFCs.So relax, and if you need further references/examples, find them -- but don't blame the spec for being very tight about interpretation. If it weren't, nothing would ever interoperate .

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