[ticker-dev] Re: Attribute Naming

[Julian Boot]

David Arnold wrote:

> i'll comment on these two, since i have spent some thinking time on it
> over the years.
> 
>    Protocol-Name
>    Protocol-Version
> 
> my favourite way of doing this at the moment is
> 
>    name: version
> 
> the benefit of having the name as a field name, rather than a value,
> is that you can have multiple standards supported in the same
> notification, and you can select using require(), which is more
> efficient than a string comparison.

The former of these becomes the killer, IMO.  If we had lists, then
you could have a single Protocols attribute which contained multiple
tags.  However, we don't, so using Protocol-Name limits each well-formed
notification to a single domain.  We never want to require that.

 From an asthetic viewpoint, I prefer the usability of Protocol-[Name|Version]
rather than David's version number mangling.  The mangling, while useful
and sufficient from a technical perspective, limits the readibility of
raw notifications by mortal users.  However, protocol versions and
formats I do not consider as import to be readable and understandable
by users as the actual notification data.

(side issue: In general, I believe easily understood notifications are an
important aspect of keeping elvin useful.  If notifications are easy to
read, then users can more easily and relaible configure their consumers
to get the information they want.)

Another point: I think Protocol is the wring term - A protocol usually
defines mulitple interactions.  I think "Format" is a better term in the
current context, as we are talking about the specific format of a 
notification which may be part of a more complex protocol.  "Type"
is also an alternative...

as far as i'm concerned, i'm torn with the format/version meta-data
in an even being simple, and it being machine useful for downloading
event formats.  I think general data-naming is alot simpler and can
following general mata-data/cataloging standards which I have started
reviewing.

So, for tickertape, perhaps somthing like:

Tickertape-Format: "http://www.elvin.org/EF/tickertape-3000.xml"
Tickertape-Version: 3000

maybe ...?


-J