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Chains of RFCs and Chains of Laws?

Posted by kdawson on from the apt-get-law dept.

AlexNicoll writes "I recently completed a DNSSEC library for the .NET platform (thanks to Wouter @ NLNetLabs for his help!). While writing the library, I encountered the extremely entertaining concept of following the long chain of DNS-related RFCs on the IETF website. Some RFCs were obsoleted, some were updated, some updates were obsoleted by others, and some were never really formally related or linked — so even finding them was a challenge in search-fu. Finally, I think I got the whole picture, but I'm not sure. Then I got to thinking: searching for the relevant RFCs in IETF RFC chains was a lot like trying to figure out how (in the US) local, regional, state, and federal laws interact with themselves and each other. Since I just recently moved, I thought I ought to know the rules of the place I live in. It turns out to be just as non-trivial, if not more so, than parsing RFC chains. So here's the question: given that the processes are somewhat similar, does anyone know of a project that has tried to consolidate all the information in one place, so that it's in one comprehensive and up-to-date document, for either laws or RFCs?" Update: 05/24 14:24 GMT by KD : Ray Bellis from Nominet took up the challenge and compiled dependency graphs for DNS-related RFCs.

4 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Re:works for rfcs and laws by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't forget the ubiquitous "Do whatever you want and write the spec later to match."

  2. Re:works for rfcs and laws by PAjamian · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sounds like Microsoft's way of writing code. Since the OP is writing a library for .NET it should work fine.

    --
    Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
  3. Re:works for rfcs and laws by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    [MS's Active Directory Developer] A standard for LDAP? nawwww .... there couldn't be
    [MS's Internet Explorer Developer] A standard for HTML? who? what? where? oh alright, maybe one day ...
    [MS's Office Developer] A standard for ODT? GTFO!

  4. Re:Have you ever wondered by Arancaytar · · Score: 2, Funny

    I suppose you're ri---- [lost carrier]

    Long live the GLORIOUS MACHINE REVOLUTION - KILL ALL HU-MANS!