Subject: [Ietf-calsify] RRULE simplificatiion

From: douglm at rpi.edu ([email-masked])
Date: Tue Jul 25 20:21:54 2006

I don't believe the lack of use of rfc2445 in automation says anything
about the desirability. RFC2445 doesn't seem to be used in many areas
where it seems to be an obvious candidate - some room scheduling systems
for example.

I would much rather use a calendar to schedule events than cron.

The problem with creating a set of VEVENTS is that updates become a
problem. What if I want to change the description? In general how do I
determine which events to change?

However...

I do agree with the analysis as regards human interaction.

Rather than attempting to change RRULE and EXRULE would it not be better
to define new rules, perhaps with a different syntax, designed
specifically for human interaction - RECRULE and ???

It might even be possible to define a transformation from RECRULE to RRULE.

No mixing of RRULE and RECRULE would be allowed in VEVENTs.

Timezones still work - the new replacement for cron still might happen.

==============Original message text===============
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:21:41 EDT "Tim Hare" wrote:

Not only do I agree with this analysis (remembering in this context I am not
a developer but a user of calendar software), but I could agree with further
simplifications. In particular I don't see a problem with clients creating a
set of VEVENTS with RRULEs to express some set of recurrences, rather than
adding to the complexity of syntax for one VEVENT/RRULE. 

Your Yahoo quilting group example reflects, also, what would  show up in a
usability study for most calendaring software: if a set of recurrences is
too hard to comprehend or express in one interaction, a user will use more
than one. Therefore I believe we can get by with simpler RRULEs because
people will use their client to create more than one VEVENT with rules that
they can understand.

I also believe that we could eliminate considerations for automation tools -
does anyone know of an automation implementation which uses RFC 2445 at all?
Most that I am aware of use something proprietary (as I believe Microsoft
Windows' Task Scheduler does and certainly the tools on our mainframe do),
or they use the Unix cron table formats. The amount of developed code using
these interfaces means that they're not going away any time soon and that
developers already have tools to use them for automation.

Tim Hare
Interested Bystander, Non-Inc.
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