Reply to post: Re: What transition?

This major internet routing blunder took A WEEK to fix. Why so long? It was IPv6 – and no one really noticed

Gerhard Mack

Re: What transition?

"Well they **COULD** have dedicated one (1) IPv4 address for use as a flag that a 128 bit address will be found elsewhere in the header. That's probably not the best answer, but it's what pops immediately to mind. Truth is surely that the IPv6 designers thought (incorrectly) that they were dealing with a captive audience that had no choice but to follow the IPv6 game plan."

So adding a branch to the middle of packet hadling code forever. Congrats. Your plan slows down packet processing. A branch may not seem like much, but consider what happens with a device is used for routing and/or exists on a high speed interface. Those branches add up.

The IPv6 designers knew the transition was going to be painful and there was no other way around it (you can even read their logic if you bothered to look) so they went out of their way to make it only needed once. You could try looking it up yourself instead of assuming the worst possible motives for people you haven't met.

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