Subject: Re: [lisp] My proposed revisions to the charter

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:53:30 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>

    > I guess the question is whether the field has a specific meaning that
    > is beyond what we're doing today.
    > ...
    > If the field is simply some field that might support unspecified
    > evolution and we're applying the general criteria of protocol
    > extensibility and good engineering design and we don't have to build
    > consensus on some specific evolutionary path, then that's totally fine.

Ah, I see what you mean (I think...) Your formulation in the last paragraph
is one I am basically happy with.

Let me say that in general I like to see 'hooks' be architectural, rather
than engineering. Perhaps an example will make what I mean by that clearer.

For example, I had mentioned (elsewhere) that I'd like to see Map-Reply
enrichened with 'authentication-type/authentication-data' fields for the
mapping in that Reply. Note that in doing so I made no reference whatsoever
about what kind of authentication, etc, etc - simply left a 'high-level' hook
to do _some_ kind of authentication on the mapping, the details to be left
until later. In other words, it just says 'in the future there may be
authentication' (i.e. a high-level architectural direction), not anything
about how such authentication would actually work (i.e. lower-level
engineering detail). I assume this would pass the test in your last paragraph?

The only possible 'fly in the ointment' is if some people would want to
classify even that as 'specifying a particular evolutionary path'...

	Noel