"Programmers can't get IPv6 thus that is why they do not have IPv6 in their applications"....

Thu Nov 29 14:01:30 UTC 2012

You should store IPv6 as a pair of 64-bit integers.  While PHP lacks
the function set to do this on its own, it's not very difficult to do.

Here are a set of functions I wrote a while back to do just that
(though I admit I should spend some time to try and make it more
elegant and I'm not sure it's completely up to date compared to my
local copy ... I would love some eyes on it to make some
improvements).

http://soucy.org/project/inet6/

I would point out that many developers don't even store IP addresses
correctly and just treat them as a string.  In regards to storing as a
pair of 64-bit integers, I would caution against the temptation of
treating one field as the prefix and the other as the host segment.
While the 64-bit boundary is most common, it is certainly not
required, so please write your IPv6 support in a way that will allow
any valid prefix-length.

While PHP hasn't been my language of choice in the past, it seems to
be something that almost everyone knows, or can learn very quickly.
I've started using it as a command line scripting language quite a bit
as a result ... pretty much a cleaner Perl, the upshot is that you
don't have all the pre-written libraries that you'd find with Perl.
I've tried switching to Python for some things, but I got annoyed with
the specification being in a constant state of drastic syntax change.

But back to the topic at hand.  I think the OP was expressing that
until developers have native IPv6 access at home, they just won't care
about IPv6 support, or won't test it as well as IPv4 support.  That's
pretty much expected and I'm not even sure why it's being stated as
some revelation.  As many have pointed out, there are tunnel brokers
available to developers to test IPv6 with, but at the end of the day,
most people don't want to use a slow tunnel for anything byond
testing, and if they don't have a lot of users asking for IPv6 they're
probably not going to give it much attention until they see a need for
it.

The majority of larger applications support IPv6 just fine because
there are enough users asking for IPv6 support.  I suspect once you
see native IPv6 for residential users become more common you'll see
the developers who have been dragging their feet give in and add IPv6
support.

As mentioned with a shift to web applications though the browser, it's
been a lot less work.  Just throw your application on a server with
IPv6 and it will generally work.  You might need to modify a few
places that interact with IP addresses, but usually they're pretty
trivial (like logging) unless it's a network management oriented
application.

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 8:15 AM, Jeroen Massar <jeroen at unfix.org> wrote:
> On 2012-11-29 13:53 ,  . wrote:
>> On 29 November 2012 12:48, Dobbins, Roland <rdobbins at arbor.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Nov 29, 2012, at 6:47 PM, Bjørn Mork wrote:
>>>
>>>> What's the proper term for software which happens to access the network?
>>>
>>> Just about anything, these days.
>>>
>>> ;>
>>>
>>> 'Network-enabled' or 'network-capable' software, maybe?
>>>
>>
>> Connecting a app to a network is a fundamental change, so perhaps
>> change the app to become a "network app".  A piece of software
>> connected to a network turns from a product into a service.
>>
>> "Programmers" is to a wide group of people.  I am PHP programmer. How
>> will ipv6 impact me? nothing, probably.
>
> *ahem*
>
> As Owen already alluded to, some programs (PHP also) actually store IP
> addresses in databases. Thus if you where storing those as 32bit, you
> are out of luck.
>
> [..]
>> There are two groups of programmers, a)  these that have programming
>> only as a job,  and  b) these that invest time beyond that.
>
> Group a for you? :)
>
> Greets,
>  Jeroen
>
>

-- 
Ray Patrick Soucy
Network Engineer
University of Maine System

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F: 207-561-3531

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