I was looking for something totally different when I tripped across RFC 1025. I think the words bake off in the summary caught my interest. As I read this memo, it occured to me that some understanding of the technology that is the Internet is required to understand the culture of the Internet and to a lesser degree culture as a whole today.
The languages or protocols our computers all speak or support, were developed by groups of people and are the result of compromise and improvement over a series of years. This memo describes the technical framework which was used in the early days of network protocol development, and provides an insight into the culture that has emerged surrounding the Internet.