Subject: RE: [midcom] Protocol Evaluation document template

From: "Louis-Nicolas Hamer"<[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 15:19:49 -0500

I tend to agree with Jonathan but I also feel that we should move forward
with the protocol evaluation as soon as possible...what I am scared of is
what
some call "analysis-paralysis"...in some projects, people just keep
analyzing
without actually moving forward at some point. So, IMHO, the sooner the
better.
I especially agree with the iterative process, we may hit a wall on the
first try,
but eventually, we will get there.

L-N

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 1:17 PM
To: Melinda Shore
Cc: Jonathan Rosenberg; Barnes, Mary [NGC:B601:EXCH]; [email-masked]'
Subject: Re: [midcom] Protocol Evaluation document template

Perhaps, when the semantics document is complete, we can add one or
more requirements to the requirements document and evaluation template
that look for a match between the semantics of the semantics document
and the semantics of the existing protocols and then QUICKLY evaluate
the existing protocols against those new requirements and add the
results to their evaluation(s)?

In my experience, almost any attempt to write requirements and then
evaluate existing things against them is an iterative process: ya make
your best stab at initial requirements, during the evaluation ya
discover things ya forgot, or things ya thought were important but just
aren't anymore, etc., and so ya go back and amend the requirements and
incrementally re-evaluate the things against the new requirements. Yah,
the potential for infinite iteration exists but, again in my experience,
you usually only iterate two or three times, and the later iterations are
generally much faster than the first. And if anybody thinks they can get
the requirements for something this nebulous and complicated right the
first time, well, ....

I guess I'm weighing in here in favor of continuing the parallel existing
protocol evaluation and the development of "ideal" semantics, fully
expecting that, because of the ideal semantics development or something
else, we'll wind up amending the requirements and incrementally
re-evaluating protocols.

BTW, in beginning to evalute RSIP against the existing requirements, I'm
starting to see some potential new requirements. I should have some
comments on the e-mail list on this next week.

Comments expected and welcome.

Jim Renkel
Director, Advanced Technology & System Engineering
The CommWorks Corp., a 3Com company
e-mail: [email-masked]

Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>@ietf.org on 03/28/2002 05:27:24 PM

Sent by:  [email-masked]

To:   Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>, Mary Barnes
      <[email-masked]>
cc:   "'midcom @ietf.org'" <[email-masked]>
Subject:  Re: [midcom] Protocol Evaluation document template

At 06:09 PM 3/28/02 -0500, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote:
>The requirements documents are at a high enough level that I do not see
>how they would be used to rule out or support protocols. Just about any
>sensible protocol that supports a session oriented communication between
>two things, with messages in both directions, will meet the
>requirements.

Right.  I think there may be some confusion at work, though -
the protocol "evaluation" document is not a protocol recommendation
document - the decision about which protocol will ultimately be
used will take place after the evaluation document is complete.
By then the semantics document should be done or nearly done,
although I'm somewhat disappointed that there hasn't been one response
to the proposal that Tom has put out and there haven't been any other
proposals put forward.  And, frankly, I don't think that the semantics
we settle on are going to have that much discriminatory power.

I understand your concern but I think we're okay.  If you're familiar
with "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" you may recall the scene in
which he steps into the abyss only to find that there's actually an
invisible bridge there.  It's possible that there's no bridge here,
but I'm willing to try it anyway.  I really don't want to delay starting
the protocol evaluation until the semantics are put together - it would
end up taking us over a year to finish.

Melinda

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---

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 22:06:59 -0500

Louis-Nicolas Hamer wrote:
> with the protocol evaluation as soon as possible...what I am scared of
> is what
> some call "analysis-paralysis"...

Since I appear to be in the minority, I'll cease and desist on this
point. However, I do want to be clear that I was not proposing analysis
of any sort; the "abstract protocol" is design work - to specify the
protocol itself in all details but the syntax.

-Jonathan R.

-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.            72 Eagle Rock Avenue
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