[dublin]

Not only that, the very idea of clear, literate explanations is really a core part of the entire Internet ethos, heavily influenced by UNIX. (Read http://theody.net/elements.html - you'll be glad you did...)

This was revolutionary back in the days when most protocol specs were proprietary and designed to protect the priesthood (usually of a particular vendor)rather than facilitate interoperability. It's hard to imagine now, but one of the big reasons TCP/IP won was that it actually encouraged interoperability and interworkability. (Jan Stefferud drew a distinction between those two terms in this context...)