[NNTP] Article number wording

[Steve Walker]

Ade Lovett wrote:

>For the record, I strongly object to any specific mention of
>32/64/whatever-bit text in the document as it stands now.  I firmly
>believe we would be doing a major disservice to the Internet community
>at large by delaying publishing this over one of a myriad of
>implementation issues.
>  
>
Are you suggesting removing the existing text that says numbers must be 
32 bit and they can't wrap around?  That's my problem with the existing 
proposal.  It added a new 32 bit limit and forbid the wrapping of 
numbers.  That's why I say it is so broken that it shouldn't be used as 
is.  It's a time bomb waiting for everyone to do their own thing.  
Personally I'm going to push 64 bit numbers, the next guy may wrap 
around.  We don't have a clear, correct path for what to do when it 
happens and the client authors will be confused.  They know they have to 
support numbers larger the 32 bit, but the RFC says to not do it.

Personally I think 64 bit numbers solves the problem with the least 
amount of problems.  It's easy to fix software to use 64 bit numbers.  
Doing unlimited text based math, while fine in a perfect world, will 
cause a lot more issues and there is little to really gain compared to 
64 bit numbers.

Steve.