Subject: Re: [Netconf] status of with-defaults

From: "Andy Bierman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:11:50 -0700

Hi,

These comments seem like minor nits.  Not sure what you want to change.  I don't think the verb usage is confusing, but I will look at aligning more closely with 4741 and the YANG draft.

Andy

----- Reply message -----
From: "t.petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, Aug 10, 2010 01:10
Subject: [Netconf] status of with-defaults
To: "Bert \(IETF\) Wijnen" <[email-masked]>, "netconf" <[email-masked]>

I am unclear where with-defaults got to.  There was a Last Call which seemed to
peter out, a new version appeared picking up some but not all of the comments
and ...

I still have problems of comprehension with this I-D, as perhaps Martin alluded
to in his comments.

Two areas.

Data nodes.  This I-D references the YANG I-D, and so users of it might know
that a data node is part of the schema tree and nothing to do with the data
tree.  Which makes its use here potentially confusing to me since most if not
all uses of it seem to refer to nodes/leaves in the data tree..  As
(head-banging) Randy has pointed out, you cannot not have a meta-model of the
data for an I-D like this one, and if it is different to YANG, then I think that
that needs spelling out.  A few years ago, I would have said that this was
unnecessary but the YANG I-D with its different (to me) definition of data node
has changed that.

An allied problem is that this references RFC4741 for a definition of datastore
and yet that term is not defined there.  Rather, RFC4741 (almost) always uses
configuration datastore so I think that this I-D should do so as well or else
(re-)define datastore.

And whatever is in that data node seems to be described in many ways; if these
are the same, then I find that confusing, if different, I am confused.  I see
these thingies in the data tree having a 'match' or 'set' or 'contain' or 'has'
or 'represent' or ... relationship to the default values e.g.

 have a large number of default values
 a data node that contains its schema default
 any data node set to its schema default value to be default data.
 represented by a schema default value
  they match the schema default value

Whatever the relationship is, I think that only one verb should be used to
portray it, unless a distinction is being drawn (which there could be in some
but not all uses of 'set') ie we have a 'data tree', it consists of 'leaf (foo/
bar/  ...) nodes' and they 'have (/contain/ ...)' values.

This probably seems trivial to you who have lived with this for several months,
but to someone coming to it afresh, or coming back after a hiatus of some
months, I think this a significant problem of comprehension.  And it is not as
if the semantics being described are familiar or easy to follow!

Tom Petch

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---

From: "t.petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:04:02 +0200

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Bierman" <[email-masked]>
To: "t.petch" <[email-masked]>; "Bert (IETF) Wijnen"
<[email-masked]>; "netconf" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:11 PM

> Hi,
>
> These comments seem like minor nits.  Not sure what you want to change.  I
don't think the verb usage is confusing, but I will look at aligning more
closely with 4741 and the YANG draft.

Andy

My comments are not intended to change the meaning, rather make it easier to see
what it is, by using a (more) consistent terminology.  I do think that some,
perhaps many, I-Ds make perfect sense to those who have been immersed in them
for a while, whereas someone coming afresh, or after a hiatus - me on this
occasion - sees potential ambiguities or contradictions more clearly.  I read
those different verbs and wonder if I am missing a semantic difference; I like
variety in my chick lit, I don't in my technical specifications!

Tom Petch