Subject: Re: [Techspec] s3.4 Validation of References

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:41:00 -0700 (PDT)

Ray,

I realize you have suggested this before, but unfortunately it is a bad
idea.  When document A is held up by a normative reference to B, A and
B must be published together.  It is not at all unusual for some
inconsistency between A and B to show up at the very last minute.
Therefore, it is unreasonable and undesirable to say that A must be
fully ready to publish before B is done.

Furthermore, it seems to be forcing a particular resource allocation on
the pub service with no gain, but rather a loss of flexibility and
therefore efficiency.  If you accept that the pub service has the same
goal that the IAD/IASA/IETF has -- publishing documents as quickly and
efficiently as possible -- then imposing arbitrary scheduling rules
like this cannot be a useful thing to do.

Bob Braden

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:38:18 +0200

> like this cannot be a useful thing to do.

I suspect we may be over-designing a bit here, but I'd observe
that holding documents for missing references at the entry to
the queue (which I believe is current practice) may not be ideal
either - although it may be a perfectly sensible pragmatic
choice when the workload is high. So while validation of
references is a requirement, I'm not sure we should
write down *when* it has to be done. When I buy a Model T Ford,
I don't specify where in the production line the wheels
have to be attached.

     Brian