RE: Methods in the NIM requirements

["Weiss, Walter" <WWeiss@lucentctc.com>]

Harald,

If I understand you correctly each interface should be represented in a
method. Therefore, each interface should be represented as a methods. In
addition, each interface should also have a set of attributes that provide
an alternate interface. Is that what you are saying?

Thanks for the clarification.

-Walter

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [mailto:Harald@Alvestrand.no]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 5:27 AM
> To: Weiss, Walter; nim@ops.ietf.org
> Subject: Re: Methods in the NIM requirements
> 
> 
> At 03:56 18.04.2000 -0400, Weiss, Walter wrote:
> >I am really struggling with this thread. Here is my basic 
> problem. In many
> >of the models I have seen (including some I have worked on), 
> a class is
> >defined with a set of attributes that can be manipulated to affect
> >particular changes in the system that the object is meant to 
> model. Hence,
> >the set of attributes provide an interface to the system 
> being described. In
> >contrast, traditional OO design approaches suggest that an 
> object has a set
> >of attributes that are not directly accessable except with the use of
> >methods. Hence, the method is the interface to the object 
> (and therefore the
> >system). If we want to incorporate methods in the NIM 
> requirements, then the
> >methods should represent the primary interface, obviating 
> the need for most
> >attributes (except as parameter definitons for the methods).
> 
> let me suggest that methods and attributes will in many cases 
> be duals; you 
> can define one in terms of the other, and the direction 
> doesn't matter much.
> 
> however, attributes can be a very awkward means of modelling 
> operations; I 
> find it unnatural to model, say, a "reboot" operation, which 
> affects the 
> state of many, many attributes of many components, as a change to an 
> attribute, even if it is called a "reboot button".
> 
> however, I too have a problem seeing the relation between 
> this discussion 
> and the requirements document; my reading of the requirements 
> document is 
> that it requires things for which methods are needed, and no 
> alternate text 
> has been proposed so far.
> 
> end of discussion?
> 
>                   Harald
> 
> --
> Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
> Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no
>