Subject: [mmox] Top down or down top?

From: Catherine Pfeffer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:33:39 +0100

Christian wrote:
> Well, I know a lot of places where it's used to add additional
> attributes etc.
(it = namespaces)

Additional attributes from the same standard?

> Maybe some XML representation is really all which is needed.

I'm glad we said it in parallel without any concertation ;-).

> But actually I really would first think about a more global approach
> towards a general architecture and then defined the more details
> protocols and formats needed.

What we need is perharps both a top-down approach and a down-top approach.

For example, what happens if you write all the clothing serialization in
LLIDL and then Jon says "well, data description would be better in XML
schemas" ? ;-)

In the other direction, the high level analysis might discover that we need
to add a "time" data type to the lower level.

I feel it safer to think both at highest layers and at lowest layers at the
same time. The actual work needs not be done by the same people. If they
work in different groups, there just needs to be enough communication
between both groups so the whole picture remains consistent. The whole
approach can be an incremental process.

-- 
Cathy