Subject: Re: IPP> Protocol Specification Language

From: Patrick Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 09:20:28 -0700 (PDT)

From: Randy Turner <[email-masked]>
	To: [email-masked]
	Subject: IPP> Protocol Specification Language

	Well, as I expected, I received numerous comments on my proposal to
	use ASN.1 as a formal specifier for IPP. One problem though, I didn't
	hear any better ideas...

	One question I had that might help the decision. I was curious how the
	WG felt about designing the core IPP utilizing just text strings, not
	necessarily human readable, but defintely machine parsable. If we use
	nothing but ASCII text to define our protocol (much like RFC 822 or
	MIME)
	then its possible that we could get along without a formal syntax
	language like
	ASN.1. In fact, we could probably get away with a BNF specification for
	the whole thing.

	One problem I had with doing this was that we were talking about
	formalizing data types within the model document. If we stay away from
	endian-ness and bit-lengths of data types, then I think we could just
	use
	BNF. In other words, the more formal we get with regards to the model
	document and data types, the more we need a formal way to express
	the core IPP protocol in a strict, unambigous manner.

	Randy

That is my thinking also.  I prefer to deal with protocols that are text
based,  as the implementation and debugging/tracing/monitoring at the
network,  protocol, and application level can be done in a uniform and
simple manner.

Patrick Powell