RE: draft-ietf-impp-cpim-msgfmt syntax

No doubt to the astonishment of all, I am largely in agreement with Mr.
Crocker. I've never really understood the justification for having a unique
syntax for MSGFMT, and frankly, I felt similarly about the DateTime effort -
it is difficult to understand why IM and presence would need their own time
format. What were the deficiencies with previous message formats that
motivated defining a whole new syntax? PIDF, by way of contrast, is
essentially breaking new ground, and there was little in the IETF that might
have been reused.

That much said, now that DateTime is done, there's no reason not to use it.
An argument could be made that MSGFMT 'is what it is' at this stage, and it
should be completed. However, I definitely agree that MSGFMT would be leaner
and simpler, and more in keeping with the actual scope of the working group,
if it were to reuse an existing syntax for its format - I think rfc2822 is a
reasonable suggestion.

It might cost us a little time now to change this, but I think we will save
time in the long run if we reuse an existing format - a whole new format
would surely go under significant scrutiny in the IESG, etc.

Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Crocker [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 8:53 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: draft-ietf-impp-cpim-msgfmt syntax
> 
> 
> Folks,
> 
> MsgFmt specifies a unique syntax, rather than using RFC2822 or XML as its
> syntactic reference.  This means that implementors will need to build a
new
> parser.  (The fact that the syntax has a spriritual relationship with RFC
> 822 syntax does not mean that it will not require a new parser.)
> 
> The original version of MsgFmt used XML, in line with the rather massive
> trend towards its use in structured data representation, in order to take
> advantage of the quickly-growing repertoire of XML tools.
> 
> New parsers mean new code and new code means new bugs.
> 
> One would think that an effort seeking maximum interoperability would want
> to limit the sources of bugs.  (For that matter, one would think that an
> effort like this would seek to keep the implementation effort as small as
> possible, creating only what is essential for the main task of the format,
> namely IM message semantics.)
> 
> Hence one would have expected MsgFmt either to use a profile of RFC 2822
or
> to use XML.
> 
> There is still time to fix this and make a more appropriate choice.
> 
> d/
> -- 
>  Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email protected]>
>  TribalWise <http://www.tribalwise.com>
>  t +1.408.246.8253; f +1.408.850.1850
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   [reminder: [email protected] for non-technical 
> discussions, please]
> 
> 



  [reminder: [email protected] for non-technical discussions, please]