Re: Agenda change

[Ralph Lange <Ralph.Lange@bessy.de>]

Dalesio, Leo `Bob` wrote:

I'll make sure that there is a disclaimer.

Good. I hope not just some small print on the last slide. More than in a formal disclaimer, I'd be interested in how it's presented during the discussion. I would like to hear: hey, this is our first idea on how this could look like - how do you like it? What is missing? And not: This is it. Please send questions and complaints to the support department.

I thought that DA was pretty well set - except for those things that we see are missing as we try to use it. Is this a misconception?

Well - except for:
- What's the string interface?
- What's the array interface?
- What does the surveyor interface look like?
- Is the type description mechanism enumerated or functional?
- Is there support for unsigned integers or not?
Except for those basic issues, yes: it is pretty well set.

It was also my impression that the DA interface was the client interface being offered up. I thought that Kay was simply trying to use it in his client - and maybe providing a "helper" layer that mere mortals could use.

This exactly is the still open issue that I was trying to get on last week's VC agenda:

If Jeff's CA interface is the user interface and it uses DA, DA will also be the user level interface.
If Kay's mortal data container is to be the mortal user interface, how can it be used with Jeff's CA calls which are using DA as their interface to data? Will there be a mortal Channel Access interface on top of Jeff's stuff that will use Kay's mortal containers instead of DA? Or will Kay's dead easy containers be implementing DA as well so that they can be used in the original CA calls?

I doubt that we have an agreement on even the basic structure of the client lib. We have seen in mails of the last days (!!) that Jeff and Kay have different impressions of where their respective APIs are located.

I fear that multiple talks on APIs held by a bunch of people that don't even share a conception of where these APIs will be located might be more confusing than helpful to a broad audience.

Ralph