Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!mtunx!whuts!mhuxh!mhuxu!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuhk!mhuxo!ulysses!thumper!faline!bellcore!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: IPC - IPCMessage and Networks
Keywords: IPC, standard, network
Message-ID: <1948@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 88 22:22:16 GMT
References: <5699@well.UUCP> <9131@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5819@well.UUCP> <5896@well.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 44

In article <5896@well.UUCP>, shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson) writes:
> All the server has to do
> is ignore the parts of the message it doesn't understand.  The client on
> the other hand has to examine the replied message carefully to see what
> the server ignored and what it understood.

I don't see a way around this. Have you an alternative?

> I hope you don't want your message format hated as much as the IFF
> standard. ;-)

I *like* the IFF standard. I don't know why people are turned off by it.
The only thing that's obscure about IFF is the recursive stuff is a pain,
but very few programs use the recursive stuff.

> In fact, IFF files turn out to be a bad analogy for these
> very same reasons -- the work gets done by the wrong participant.  It's
> MUCH easier to write IFF files than to read them, the reverse of the way
> you would want it. 

This is a general problem with communication between programs written by
different people. You generally have a standard that's too simple to be
useful or one that's too complex to use. IFF is a good compromise.

> The o-o approach needs more than what the IPCMessage provides, however, 
> since it needs a standard for data exchange as well as messages.  The 
> data exchange standard are the "objects" in the scheme.

From my reading I got the impression that servers were the objects, and the
o-o stuff was mainly intended to get the right guys talking... with the
added advantage that you could do a "sendsuper" to your parent for messages
you didn't grok.

> Overall, I like the IPCMessage format.  Even though I find there are
> things I can't do with it, it does have a simplicity that I find
> appealing.  I'm trying to create a hybrid standard using the best parts 
> of both the IPCMessage format and the object-oriented design I have been 
> working on.  I'll shout if I come up with anything brilliant.

Please do. I'll give your stuff another read.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.