Subject: Re: ADSPEC format

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 21:13:34 -0700

At 4:17 PM 9/3/96, Karl Auerbach spluttered:
> Making *all* headers and parameters a multiple of 32-bits makes a whole lot
> of sense to me.

If you're going to change the thing yet again, remove the padding, and make
the lengths be in bytes, IMHO.

Having said which, isn't this a little late in the game for yet another
instance of brownian motion in the spec? Is this an issue of "the spec is
broken" or "the spec would be prettier if we pretty-printed it"? If it's
not actually broken, and we're not actually changing the information
advertised, I'd really like to not change it.

> In addition, I'm not really sure that it's a win to have the adspec with an
> overall generic parameter service, then have the guaranteed and controlled
> load services contain overrides.  It would be cleaner to my mind if we
> dispensed with the generic part, and simply move those parameters into each
> of the specific services.

It would be cleaner in my mind, absent a strong argument for the existence
of overrides, to simply make the arguments generic and not override them.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I don't suffer from insanity.  I enjoy every minute of it.

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From: Roch Guerin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 07:31:57 -0400

>advertised, I'd really like to not change it.

Fred, 
Not sure if it's brownian motion, drift process, or a normal
evolution as we start working out details, but I do think there are a 
number of issues in the way the formats are currently specified.
Nothing that is totally broken, but potentially enough to create
problems, as Karl points out, with interoperability and also for
extensions later on.  The current "packing" of parameters is somewhat
dependent on the order, whether you use over-ride or not, and does not
allow for easy introduction of new parameters if the need ever arises.
A first step to improve this is to include a length field for each
parameter, and then you can debate whether you want words or bytes.

>of overrides, to simply make the arguments generic and not override them.

There are some parameters, e.g., minimum path bandwidth, for which an
over-ride capability may be desirable and John did put in some
motivations/explanations on that topic in his document.

Roch