[SAGA-RG] Service Discovery spec updated at last ...

[Steve Fisher]

2008/12/16 Andre Merzky <andre at merzky.net>:
> Hi Steve,
>
> sorry again for the late reply!  Anyway, I attach a pdf with
> some suggested changes marked, all minor IMHO (red: removed
> text, blue: changed text, green: added text, diff style in
> verbose sections).
>
> Please let me know if you want these changes commited, or if
> I possibly misunderstood parts (again).  Otherwise, I think
> its really ready to go out!
>
> Summary of changes:
>
>  - some formatting (found ^M's which messed things up, some
>    spacing, page break, etc)

Thanks - that is probably using a mixture of eclipse and emacs on windows ...

>  - added a number of exceptions, refering their syntax to
>    the core spec (e.g. TimeOut, etc)

OK

>  - removed some exeptions, too, as error conditions could
>    never occur, I think.

You have removed "NoSuccess" from the service_description calls. I
thought this was a catch-all which should almost always be present?

You have added a note that the returned list can be empty - but you
have it as "reurned"


>  - fixed some inconsistencies (service naming for SAGA
>    services was different in attribs and verbose text, for
>    example)


>  - chaged casing for MUST, SHOULD, etc (was often lowercase
>    where it should have been uppercase, IMHO)

I don't object to the style

>  - separated suggested SAGA service names for files and
>    directories (a file URL cannot be used for a dir, and
>    vice versa)

I don't agree with this - it used to be your way round and it was
criticised by one of our reviewers. You don't generally want to access
directories and files by different services unless the underlying
system used a  universal naming schema such as AFS.   However,
checking the main spec again, I see you have no way of controlling
which file/directory service you use - it is under the control of the
implementation. So at least file, directory, logical-file and
logical-directory should be removed from this table until such time as
they provide a means of selecting the service to use.

Just above this you have added some text with the word "Services" - it
should be "services"

A few lines later you have changed related service to the plural -
please change it back. Only one value is permitted.

As a note on the discoverer constructor you have added "if the URL" -
to be consistent it should read "if the url"

Has "IncorrectURLException" now become "IncorrectURL"?

>  - added a 'Implementation MAY use saga context attrib
>    names for auth filtering', to clarify that this is not
>    required (auth filter generation may imply otherwise).

I see you have rejected 3 of our constructors in favour of 1 with 2
optional arguments.  I presume the language binding is allowed to do
it in a way that is natural for that language. You suggest that
specifying a url as an empty string should be equivalent to omitting
it. This offends me - and I think it is wrong in other places in the
SAGA spec.

So I would like to see something like:

CONSTRUCTOR (in session session,
                             in url url,
                             out discoverer dis)

and state that both parameters are optional in the notes.

In a similar manner I don't like having the list_services call
repeated (with and without the optional parameter) as it just makes
the specification less readable.

Perhaps we can agree on  these points of representation before
checking anything in. I would like to see 1 constructor with 2
optional arguments (as you have it) - but no default empty string and
to leave the list_services as one call with an optional argument.

It might be worth a phone call - where are you?

Steve

>
> Many thanks,
>
>  Andre.
>
>
> Quoting [Steve Fisher] (Dec 05 2008):
>> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:59:12 +0000
>> From: "Steve Fisher" <dr.s.m.fisher at gmail.com>
>> To: saga-rg at ogf.org
>> Subject: [SAGA-RG] Fwd: Service Discovery spec updated at last ...
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Unfortunately I have not had any reaction to this. I don't like to
>> assume that silence means that everybody is happy. Perhaps at least a
>> co-chair could look through and give me the go-ahead to resubmit.
>>
>> Implementation work is due to restart in C++ on Monday and start in
>> Java on the same date.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Steve Fisher <dr.s.m.fisher at gmail.com>
>> Date: 2008/12/1
>> Subject: Service Discovery spec updated at last ...
>> To: saga-rg at ogf.org
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have finally got the spec updated - please see attached .dvi and
>> .pdf files. Please make any final comments before it goes back to the
>> OGF editors. Work on implementation will resume next week.
>>
>> Steve
> --
> Nothing is ever easy.
>