ietf-openproxy
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RE: OCP Core version head_sid6 available

2003-05-23 05:31:52


How about just calling the command with its full name and then only
refering to the abbreviation as the code in the technical
description.
Example

    7.1 The connection-start command

        command code: CS
        anonymous parameters: none
        ...

Would you use "CS" or "connection-start" in the examples? Full names
make examples much more readable and make readers feel like they
immediately know what is going on...

Due to the unnamed parameters, readers will need to refer to the command 
descriptions all the time anyway to be able to understand the examples.
So, I would stick with "CS" in the examples and better add more comments to the 
examples that help faster understanding of what is going on.


Looking from the other point of view, what are the technical reasons
for NOT allowing full names on the wire? We can probably convince most
developers to use abbreviations while supporting full versions. The
amount of extra code or memory needed to support both versions is
minimal. Are we concerned with extra bandwidth and CPU cycles spent on
handling full versions if some broken implementation sends them?

Certainly it is not a big deal to program in a way that short and long names 
are supported but if you know that command names will never exceed three or 
four characters, there may be a chance for some optimizations.


Or are we primarily concerned that some implementations will end up
recognizing one version (full or abbreviated) and not the other?


While most implementations would use the abbreviated version, it is likely that 
full-name support is less well tested and has some limitations or hidden bugs 
that are not found during normal testing procedures.

Regards
Martin