There's a lot of variation in the quality of RFCs, both from a technical standpoint and from a writing standpoint. I've read a number of the email and MIME related RFCs, and they're terrible. They leave out so many details, and the decisions that went into them seem designed to make email as hard to parse as possible.
The HTTP RFCs have been, in my experience, better written. They just seem to be more solid.
The "archaic" style is really just how you write a spec. The all-caps MUST, SHOULD, etc. stuff is about being as specific as possible. That's a good thing for a spec.
The HTTP RFCs have been, in my experience, better written. They just seem to be more solid.
The "archaic" style is really just how you write a spec. The all-caps MUST, SHOULD, etc. stuff is about being as specific as possible. That's a good thing for a spec.