Re: Separation of protocol and information model

[Bobby Krupczak <rdk@krupczak.org>]

Hi!

>I think of it this way: the data model for /etc/master.passwd tells
>how a unix user looks is represented, the semantics of the fields
>and the syntax with which they are formatted.  This is distinct
>knowledge from the work vipw has to do to lock, edit, propagate,
>and unlock the file containing those fields.  vipw can do it's work
>without considering the syntactic or semantic contents of
>/etc/master.passwd.  netconf wants to give the same sort of
>opaque manipulation for handling network configuration data sets.

Interesting; however, the vipw program has to use linked code that has
intimate details of the file structure and code that converts that
code into an in-memory structure.  So, I find these kinds of
thought-exercises constructive but, in practice, the actual
implementation is a bit more messy and blurred.  What I'm saying is
that in practice, they dont separate out that easily.

It is at this crucial boundary that the protocol, API, and data-model
become so intertwined and getting them just right is oh so difficult.

Bobby

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