[Rps] Re: Last Call: 'RPSLng' to Proposed Standard

In message <3F62A591.2070405 at mrp.net>, Mark Prior writes:
> Curtis Villamizar wrote:
> 
> > Why don't you try it one more time.  I don't remember seeing anything
> > on the RPS mailing list in a long time so you must have given up quite
> > some time ago or not copied the RPS mailing list.
> > 
> I was probably just using the rpslng list.
> 
> > It would be best if you gave specific syntax changes you'd like to see
> > and why, plus how to transition to the new syntax.
> > 
> My argument has always been about making is easier for the poor user and 
> pushing the complexity to the software. This meant I wanted most of the 
> syntax to remain the same, with optional phrases for the MP bits and 
> certainly not grow "MP" variants of import, export, etc. Also I believed 
> that the software could work out from its context if it wanted a IPv4 
> address or a IPv6 one and so there only needed to be one route object.
> 
> The complaints about this approach seemed to revolve around backward 
> compatability with existing software and my approach to that was to get 
> newer software to perform some handshake with the server to say what it 
> wanted otherwise the server would just return data acceptable to a RPSL 
> client.
> 
> Mark.


I wasn't part of that discussion, but if you don't mind a last minute
comment on this...

Transition issues are very important in a RR.  You have to assume that
old software will be around for quite a long time.  Someone is bound
to be using old code for a very long time.

Curtis