On 5/15/25 12:31 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
(Also, I'm a big fan of using _APIs_ to help specify _protocols_
including _semantics_, but that is not a popular view at the IETF,
sadly.)
An API in the general case (e.g., interface declarations for some
programming language) does not define an internet protocol.
I once worked on CORBA. An interface defined in CORBA IDL, together with
the definition of the underlying CORBA protocol, *did* define a higher
level protocol.
(I got into CORBA after suffering through a very long standardization
process for a bespoke protocol over OSI. (MMS - Manufacturing Message
Specification.) CORBA would have allowed us to develop a lot of protocol
without need to get down in the weeds. Unfortunately CORBA wasn't a hit.)
Similarly, an interface defined as web services can define a higher
level protocol. (This seems to have been more popular.)
To define an *internet* based protocol, there has to be a well defined
mapping all the way down to the bits on the wire (or fiber).
Thanks,
Paul
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