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hstenn / ietf-ntp-extended-information-ef

IETF NTP Extension Field proposal: Extended-Information
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Remove extensibility #1

Open samuelweiler opened 5 years ago

samuelweiler commented 5 years ago

I suggest that you remove the extensibility in this extension field. Just use it for the two types of info that you're defining now - and flags (if needed) to tell which of the two is present.

Otherwise, the document needs to 1) add a new IANA registry for the bitmask, and 2) explain what to do when previously-unknown bits are set.

hstenn commented 5 years ago

Why is it bad to have another IANA registry? One of the goals is to have the data be as compact as possible, and to be as conservative as we can with limited resources (ie, codepoints).

samweiler commented 5 years ago

Why is it bad to have another registry? It makes your document more complex, creating more potential stumbling blocks. That is not an overwhelming reason to not do it.

The bigger issue is extensibility in general, since that makes the code more complex. Simplicity is a charm. Address this issue by focusing on the extensibility suggestion. If the WG's decision is to retain the extensibility, then you'll need the IANA registry.

hstenn commented 5 years ago

Evolving the content of this EF will require future changes. I think the current design is the simplest and easiest way to do this, and will result in the least amount of code to handle new fields in the future.