Popped in to the IETF meeting at the Hilton Metropole on Edgeware Road yesterday. I was meeting Alan Johnston in advance of heading over to the trefor.net UC Exec dinner. If you weren’t there you missed a great night. Some of the attendees already knew Alan by reputation and it was good to be able to hook them up.

The great thing about the IETF meetings is the opportunity to chat with people in the game. Yesterday I bumped into no end of people I knew.

I don’t normally go to them. You have to have a specific technical interest. However I was thinking of popping along later today if I have time. The agenda is pure internet engineering poetry.

The topics covered today illustrate the complexity of the internet under the bonnet (hood). The layman clicks on a link and expects a website or application to pop up. Although the concept is quite simple the actual execution is hugely complicated.

Goodness knows how many engineer hours have gone into it. Much time will in fact have been spent on threads that have gone nowhere. Ended up in the internet bin (trash). I leave you with this screenshot of today’s agenda at the IETF.