[SAGA-RG] Service Type

[Fisher, SM (Steve)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andre Merzky [mailto:andre at merzky.net] 
> Sent: 20 February 2008 15:36
> To: Fisher, SM (Steve)
> Cc: Andre Merzky; SAGA RG
> Subject: Re: Service Type
> 
> Quoting [Fisher, SM (Steve)] (Feb 20 2008):
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I was just making the agreed chnages to the SD spec when I relaiszed
> > that you said to use saga::<package>::<class> with package and class
> > according to the implementation language. This won't work easily as
> > means altering the string from the information service or 
> wherever it
> > comes from according to the chosen language. I think that a 
> service type
> > must be independent of the chosen language and so taken 
> from the spec.
> 
> I don't think that language dependence is a problem, as I
> would expect the SAGA implementation to translate that into
> valid types anyway.
> 
> In other words: I would not expect a SD _service_ to know
> about saga::job::service service types, but, for example,
> about
> 
>   service_type=job_submission
>   service_type=job
>   service_type=job_management
>   service_type=DRMAA
>   service_type=BES
>   etc
> 
> and the SAGA implementation would translate
> 'saga::job::service' into the respective values (the
> SAGA implementation is what shields the application
> programmer from middleware details, and the exact service
> type strings are exactly that, middleware details...).
> 
> Does that make sense to you?

Not really. The SD part of SAGA should cannot be expected to translate
from the real service type in the information system to some language
specific one as this would require translation from the language
specific name to the langugae neutral name before looking up - and
updating this table for each new service or language binding. I find
this not very manageable. It is the responsibilty of the service to
publish its type in a language independent manner

My favoured way of naming services is reverse DNS style. So the job
service would be org.ogf.saga.job. However these names cannot be derived
automatically from the spec - as this would give
org.ogf.saga.job.job_service. Maybe the best approach is an erratum to
the main spec which for each service like thing gives it a unique
reverse DNS type name

I am sorry I am being so slow to respond. I am trying to do too many
things at once - I hope it will be better in April.

Steve