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Where did you get the idea that NTP is defined by a 'reference implementation'? Going back to 1988, Dave Mills has been documenting the NTP protocol. https://to
by phicoh 10y ago
Where did you get the idea that NTP is defined by a 'reference implementation'? Going back to 1988, Dave Mills has been documenting the NTP protocol. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1059 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1059
(Personally I don't think that's the best way to do time synchronisation, but it is fully documented, measured, etc.)
- someguydave 10y ago>Where did you get the idea that NTP is defined by a 'reference implementation'? The article and many comments here indicate that they believe NTPd is a "reference implementation". What does that mean other than "specifies behavior"? If it instead means "Here's an example, it might do what the specification says or not" then it's not really a "reference" - the specification is.
- coldtea 10y ago>What does that mean other than "specifies behavior"? That it's the implementation that a) everyone uses, and b) actually supports the whole spec.
- eridius 10y agoThe reference implementation serves 3 purposes: 1) It implements the whole thing, so it can be used as-is. 2) It serves as a reference for any questions that are unanswered by the spec. Yes, specs should ideally answer all questions themselves, but there has not been a spec written yet that does not have at least one unanswered question somewhere. 3) It serves as a way to test new implementations, because you can see if your new implementation is compatible with the reference implementation. If not, then you probably screwed something up somewhere.