The first RFC(Request For Comment) was written 40 years ago today, and the NYTimes has a piece on it here. I like RFCs, not particularly that they make pleasant reading, but that they are a great design methodology. It’s about saying” hey kids, I think there’s a technical need here, and here’s how we can address it. If anyone feels they can improve, let me know, and we can maybe work something out. Feel free to roll your own!”. It clearly knocks the socks off death by committee which comes up with monsters like MPEG, USB, 1394… It’s also one of the roots of open source. I’ve personally slogged at implementing a protocol so that one toy could be compatible with another, and I have the RFCs to thank.
Happy birthday RFCs! Here’s a pearltree collecting a few RFCs that I find of interest.
RFC
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by Rounding Up Last Week of Peter Elst’s Interview With Scott Barnes
13 Apr 2009 at 18:01
[…] remembered the birth of the Request for Comment culture on its […]