On 11/18/2014 1:43 AM, Stephen Farrell wrote: > > > On 18/11/14 05:11, Watson Ladd wrote: >> Do architecture and requirements documents actually work? Or do they >> end up overcomplicating solutions, ... > I know Dave Crocker has done some work in this space (and he's > the author of RFC5598 as well) - so Dave, do you think there'd > be value in an RFC along those lines describing an architecture > for a modern secure interpersonal messaging system that could > scale and supports implementations with privacy friendly > features?
Whether it's code, protocol specifications, architecture or requirements, whatever is written requires serious discipline and careful attention to utility -- that is, to being useful. Each of these has a long history of examples of impracticality, bloat, and/or silliness. (The worst piece of code I've ever seen what written in a highly structure-oriented language; the prettiest piece of code was written in assembler. So code is as subject to abuse as architecture documents.) Requirements docs tend to suffer from failures to distinguish between what really is essential, versus what is merely desired. (Hence, almost all the IETF documents that call themselves 'requirements' should be re-labeled, IMO.) Architecture defines components, objects and the relationships among them. Good architecture docs clarify things well and guide further work. Architecture exists whether we document or not. The difference is that when it is documented, we have a better chance of sharing the same understanding of it, and therefore meaning the same thing as we discuss things. (As a consequence, good architecture docs often allows debugging issues prior to the work of coding.) Quite a bit of discussion on this list has been about architecture, when it hasn't debated specific algorithms. But I'm unclear what goals are being agreed to or met or how decisions being made satisfy them. Documenting the architecture doesn't answer such questions, but it provides a useful place for reviewing whether the decisions match and satisfy the goals. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net _______________________________________________ Endymail mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/endymail
