Latency

[graham.travers at bt.com]

Henning,

Having reflected on this, as you suggested, I have a few comments, which are
embedded in your text below.

	Regards,

	Graham Travers

	International Standards Manager
	BTexact Technologies

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-----Original Message-----
From: Henning Schulzrinne [mailto:hgs at cs.columbia.edu]
Sent: 01 February 2003 15:34
To: problem-statement at alvestrand.no
Subject: Latency


< snip >

The costs are also clear:

< snip >

- Different contributors: writing requirements may tend to attract the 
professional standards-goers rather than academics, researchers and 
developers.

GT - Why is this a cost ?  Leaving aside the (dubious) definition of
"professional standards-goer", why are "academics, researchers and
developers" more likely to understand what the industry needs than other
people, who just may be working on operational systems in the real world ?

< snip >

- Additional opportunities for obstructionism. It is easy to add ever 
more requirements or argue, in the abstract, about requirements, 
particularly if people are trying to 'position' their prospective solution.

GT - This may be true;  but there's already plenty of opportunity for
obstructionism in arguments over which solution(s) to use. 

< snip >

"The disadvantage of waterfall development is that it does not allow for 
much reflection or revision. Once an application is in the testing 
stage, it is very difficult to go back and change something that was not 
well-thought out in the concept stage." 
http://searchvb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci519580,00.html

GT - This is all the more reason NOT to rush to implementation / testing.
"Well it doesn't do what's required; but it's nearly finished, so we can't
change it now."  is not an attitude that's calculated to improve the
industry take-up of IETF work.  The statement above is not an argument for
avoiding the requirements stage, but for iteration in the
requirements-design process ( which could actually take even longer ! ) 

< snip >

Henning