[ih] Re: internet-history digest, Vol 1 #45 - 11 msgs

[Mike Padlipsky]

  At 09:19 PM 8/5/02, David P. Reed wrote:
>What we are really needing in Internet history is the reconstruction of 
>the context in which those terms were defined.
>
>This is what is missing from much of the writings that survive.


of course.

that's why i was grousing about

 >the old 'man' page/rfc abstracts problem, where the reader is expected to 
possess full prior >knowledge of all the context the author deems relevant.

right after grousing about the msgs that didn't say what clnp, hems, etc. 
were and when the kobe mtg was -- and went on to grouse about the apparent 
abuse of the notion of 'porting' w/r/t nls and imlacs.  lazy/hazy writing 
doesn't pay enough [if any] attention to context.

so i'd like to think we're in violent agreement so far, give or take some 
possible slight misunderstandings of my position on yr part.

[e.g., b/t/w, remember/realize, it was john day who was asking people to 
worry about what nls and imlac -- and, to be scrupulous, i'd add sri, altho 
i guess that one still exists, sorta, and perhaps can be taken as given -- 
were, not i.]

however, i suggest that sensitizing writers to expand acronyms in order not 
to assume readers know all the context they [the writers] do contributes to 
furnishing the readers w/ more of the desired-by-both-of-us context, at 
least to the extent of defining terms that are part of the context and wh/ 
should be defined regardless just on that ground, and w/ any luck at all to 
the extent that [if only by psychic osmosis] it should/can also sensitize 
the writers to the general problem of paying attention to context above and 
beyond that wh/ is furnished by doing the right thing w/r/t acronyms.

which is to say that i'm not in agreement w/ your

 >I think it is just fine to capture some of this context, at least for the 
Internet, in any form >whatsoever, acronym-filled though it may be.

assertion, because i think that lazy/hazy writing doesn't furnish useful 
context, by its very nature.  and because i hear echoes in it [where it = 
the 'any form whatsoever' point] of the repugnant 'a bad protocol is better 
than no protocol at all' notion wh/ helped lumber the world w/ x.25....

not that i think fear of my righteous literary indignation is going to 
inhibit anybody from contributing to the list, but just in case i suppose i 
should promise i won't pick on future examples of lazy/hazy writing 
gratuitously [i.e., i'll only pick on it if it really bugs me]; i just had 
a weak moment earlier, triggered by annoyance that if only i knew when 'the 
kobe meeting' was i might have more ammunition for an argument i've been 
having about just when it was that 'we' won the protocol wars, since 
clearly it was after said meeting unless bob braden's middlemiddleaged 
memory [mmam] is in even worse shape than my own mmam, wh/ is quite 
unlikely, given that i don't even recall whether it was he or somebody else 
who was claiming that 'osi' was still an active threat at the time.

but i'm trying not to allow mslf to get sucked into an active role on the 
histlist, in order to protect what little is left of my wrists, fingers, 
and shoulders, so i'll let it go at that.  well, at that, plus a quick 
comment that the rfc 666 grousing was merely a free-associational jab at 
the [presumed] conscience of one of the histlist 'members', not an appeal 
for somebody to scan it.

[altho if you have a copy, AND have access to the 'official' posting 
channels for elderly rfc's, perhaps we should talk off-list, since i've 
already received

 >Actually, we are holding off on 666 just to aggregate you.

from the miscreant in question [whom i'm far too polite to 'name and shame' 
publically ... yet], and of course replied

 >'we'?  you mean it's not just you aggravating me, or was that meant to be
 >the editorial [or perhaps the multiple-personality-disordered] 'we'?

so maybe i _could_ use your help....]


cheers, map

[whose shoulder problems caused him to break down some time ago and create
a 'signature' file to apologize for the lack of his formerly customary
e-volubility -- and who's been employing shiftless typing for a long time
now to spare his wristsnfingers, in case you didn't know ... and who's
further broken down and done http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/mapstuff.html ,
rather grudgingly]