RE: WG Last Call draft-ietf-sming-reqs-04.txt

["Ayers, Mike" <Mike_Ayers@bmc.com>]

> From: Juergen Schoenwaelder [mailto:schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de] 
> >>>>> Jon Saperia writes:
> 
> Jon> 4.1.3 Human Readability.  This requirement is not specific. Which
> Jon> people do you mean? And for whome do you wish to solve a problem?
> Jon> I do not think this is a major problem that merits they type of
> Jon> change implied.
> 
> 4.1.3 only says that SMIng must be human readable. What is wrong with
> that? Note that the objectives document does not specify the syntax
> of the solution.

	"bninhgfbjkbgfxjlxbt" is human readable, albeit meaningless.  When
we complain about too many requirements, we are asked for specifics.  Here
is a specific.  This requirement is human readable, but meaningless.  Lose
it.

> Jon> 4.1.4. Machine Readability I think the motiviation for making
> Jon> easy to implement SMIng parsers is misplaced. As stated
> Jon> previously this does not seem to be a major issue.
> 
> I am not going to debate whether this is a major or minor issue.
> But I do not understrand what is wrong with simplifying parser
> implementations in general. Especially since I know too many SMI
> parsers that are just broken.

	We cannot specify our way out of bad implementations - "what" and
"how" are different questions.  This requirement is also meaningless (of
COURSE it must be machine readable, or else parsers can't exist) and should
be lost.

> Jon> 4.1.5 This seems based again on the need to optimize for
> Jon> parsers. A non problem in the companies that I am familiar with.
> 
> I frequently answer questions because people are not able to figure
> out from the SMIv2 documents what the precise syntax is. Providing an
> ABNF grammar for whatever syntax SMIng will use is thus useful not
> only for parser implementors but also for people who use this language
> to write MIB modules.

	Wait - you think that peop;le who can't grasp SMI syntax are going
to just read the ABNF grammar and say "Eureka!"???

	HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA  Hoohoohoo Hoho...

	Ow - my side hurts...

	Frankly, an ABNF grammar is more likely to lead to bad parsers
("always wanted to build me a parser - here'n's the spec!") than improve the
quality of existing parsers.  In my experience, current issues with parsers
exist more in the semantic realm than the syntactic.

	I don't feel strongly about this either way, but this is no silver
bullet.

> Jon> 4.1.6 Is it still the working group consensus to align SPPI and
> Jon> SMI?

	It's still a charter item in which the WG seems singularly
uninterested.  I don't know why this comes up so often, since the alignment
should not be very difficult.


/|/|ike