ASN.1/BER is way too heavy for IPP. If we are too close to reinventing
ASN.1
then we are way too heavy for IPP.
Much of the discussion recently has been around "simplicity". Has
IPP lost it ability to be simple? No, I don't think it has. Is it too
convoluted in some areas - YES.
There was a discussion a few weeks ago about whether IPP was DPA '97. This
reminder was a good wake-up call, and useful in that there seemed to be
immediate consensus that IPP is not intended to be too complex like DPA is
considered to be.
I vote keep it simple. Add value-types only if it is a value or keyword
that represents a specific well know syntax as described in the standard
(extensible through registration). But don't add arbitrarily extsensible,
compound data structures as potential values. And don't use ASN.1 !!
Scott
>>> Randy Turner <rturner@sharplabs.com> 06/06 12:38 PM >>>
Prior to the San Diego meeting, I proposed using ASN.1 as a way to
specify the protocol. This was
to prevent us from having to "re-invent" the wheel with regards to our
protocol specification. The nice
thing about ASN.1 (and its companion BER) is that extensibility is
easily achieved and with more
flexibility than what has been proposed so far. I think Larry Masinter
brought up the fact that ASN.1
might be a better approach, and if extensibility and clarity of
specification is what is driving these
recent discussions, then I'm curious why we are striving so hard to
reinvent another way to do this.
Randy