RE: Aggregate Attributes

["Durham, David" <david.durham@intel.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred Baker [mailto:fred@cisco.com]
> 
[Dave] ...snip...
>
> What I note in the text above is that "attribute group" and 
> "containment" 
> are used without definition. May I suggest that a strong 
> definition be 
> written for those concepts, so that when someone reads this 
> requirements 
> document they know for sure what is required and what is not?
> 
>

[Dave] I think the Attribute Group term came up because other technologies
all invent their own terms for this concept. C++/Java calls them classes, C
calls them structs, ASN.1, as you say, calls them aggregate objects, and so
on. Different people had their favorite term, and didn't like the others. I
believe Attribute Group was simply a compromise short-hand name for: a
structured grouping of attributes that can be reused by name again & again
in other contexts... Containment simply emphasizes that you can reuse such
constructs in other contexts (that is, in other structs, classes, or as
entries in other tables in the case of SMI).