This type of mass back on forth makes me wonder how many really have a
clear understanding of these NLO issues (not that I do). Nearly everyone
has expressed that the current mechanisms are overkill and very hard to
understand.
I think the only really clearly articulated discussion of this on the
mailing list has been Carl Kugler's emails. On Oct 9 Carl sent the
following email titled IPP> Re: MOD OLD NEW Issue: Contradictory NLO req.
This email suggests a very clear and to me appropriate solution. I never
saw on the list anyone state why not to accept Carl's proposal. After this
email, we received the issue broken into several inter-related issues by
Tom (which I read over and over and over, trying to understand).
I would now challenge those in the telecon who decided to keep name/text
withoutLanguage to re-read Carl's email (below) and state in what ways his
proposal is flawed. Until someone can adequately shoot down this clear
proposal of Carl's, then his proposal is what I am in favor of.
Thanks,
Stuart
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Rowley Kyocera Technology Development, Inc.
Network Product Dev. Mgr. 3675 Mt. Diablo Blvd. #330
Printer Division Lafayette, CA 94549
stuart.rowley@kyocera.com 925 299-7206 Fax: 925 299-2489
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IPP> Re: MOD OLD NEW Issue: Contradictory NLO req
-------------------------------------
Here is a proposal for simplifying IPP's natural language model. It's
basically an elaboration of a suggestion made by Keith Moore in
http://www.egroups.com/list/ipp/3644.html
The idea is simple. Eliminate the implicit language form of text and name
attributes.
Specifically:
1. Eliminate "attributes-natural-language" operation attribute.
2. Eliminate "attributes-natural-language" job object attribute.
3. Eliminate "textWithoutLanguage" attribute syntax.
4. Eliminate "nameWithoutLanguage" attribute syntax.
5. To allow client to specify desired natural language for
Printer-generated text from multi-lingual Printers, add a new, OPTIONAL,
"natural-language-requested" attribute to override Printer's
"natural-language-configured".
Now every text and name attribute has an explicitly specified natural
language.
Advantages:
1. Constructing responses is simpler. No need to consider a hierarchy of
implicit language contexts. Printer never needs to convert from
xWithoutLanguage to xWithLanguage.
2. Interpreting messages is simpler. Currently the same message can take
many forms, depending on use of redundant NLOs, etc.
2. Comparing name and text values is simpler. No need to search a
three-level precedence hierarchy to find the language of a value being
compared. Name and text values can be compared out of context.
3. Implementation is simpler. Fewer attribute syntaxes required. 12
fewer attributes have multiple syntaxes. One less attribute in a special,
reserved, required position.
4. Bandwidth savings. Using the examples from Section 9 of PRO:
9.1: save 30 bytes
9.2: save 23 bytes
9.3: save 30 bytes
9.4: save 30 bytes
9.5: save 37 bytes
9.6: save 37 bytes
9.7: save 60 bytes.
5. No loss in functionality over the original model.
6. Easier to specify and understand.
Disadvantage:
1. Reduced job security for IPP consultants ;-)
-Carl
------------------------------------------
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________ Subject: IPP> MOD - Tentative decision on
natural language override (
Author: "Hastings; Tom N" <hastings@cp10.es.xerox.com> at ~internet Date:
11/5/98 7:15 PM
At our IPP telecon, Wednesday, 11/04/1998, we tentatively agreed to the
following decisions. Please response to these tentative decisions on the
mailing list so that we may make final decisions at the upcoming IPP WG
meeting next week.
Decision 1:
Yes for nlo 3 of 4. (Issue 1.47)
A name/textWithoutLanguage does not get its implicit
language from the attributes-natural-language attribute in the job attribute
group in a Get-Jobs response. It always gets the language for each job in
the response from the attributes-natural-language operation attribute. This
is a change from the June draft by deleting a paragraph in section 3.2.6.2
Get-Jobs response (that required the job-level natural language override to
be returned for each job whose natural language differed from that of the
response as a whole).
Decision 2:
No for nlo 4 of 4. (Issue 1.48)
Keep both text/nameWithLanguage and
text/nameWithoutLanguage attribute syntaxes for 'text'/'name' attributes as
in the June draft. Thus, when a text/name attribute value's natural language
is the same as the attributes-natural-language operation attribute, the
value in the protocol can either contain text/nameWithLanguage or
text/nameWithoutLanguage.
We also discussed nlo 2 of 4. (Issue 1.46)
To clarify that a request or response MAY contain a redundant use of
text/nameWithLanguage, i.e., the explicit natural language of an attribute
value is the same as the natural language specified for the request or
response as a whole in the attributes-natural-language operation attribute.
We agreed that to make it simply a MAY (implementer option), since some
implementers want to remove redundancy in their requests and response, while
other implementers want to always pass name and text with explicit natural
languages. Thus we could not agree to make redundant NLO at the attribute
level a SHOULD or a SHOULD NOT, but merely a MAY.
Tom Hastings
(310) 333-6413