How not to design a wire protocol

[Eric S. Raymond]

Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net>:
> 
> Eric said:
> > You yourself advocated that Mode 6 ought to be replaced by an HTTP service on
> > TCP port 123. I think that's a good idea, if we can do it. The problem is
> > than NTS-KE *also* wants to have TCP 123. 
> 
> I don't want the UI side of HTTP in ntpd.

I'd like to understand better what you mean by "the UI side" and what your
objection is.

I kind of like the idea that ntpq goes away to be replaced by
"anything that speaks HTTP".  Got no issue with the peers billboard
being displayed by links2/Elinks/w3m. :-)

> > What that says to me is that whatever service we put on TCP 123 should be a
> > metaprotocol that can accommodate both KE and a Mode 6 replacement.   
> 
> The TLS layer has that feature.  ALPN.

Reading up on it now.
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		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

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