[ticker-dev] Elvin presence specification draft

[Ian Lister]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Klaus Alexander Seistrup wrote:
>Martin Wanicki wrote:
>> Sooooo here's my suggestion.
>>
>> Status becomes a number.
>>     Negative One       (-1)     = off-line
>>     Zero	         ( 0 )    = Available
>>     Positive Non-Zero	 (1..???) = some "Unavailable" status event
>
>I'm sorry Martin, but I do not support your suggestion.

I agree with Klaus; encoding status as arbitrary numbers isn't (and
shouldn't be) the `Elvin way'. It would be a step towards a world where
packets are a fixed sequence of bytes rather than open and flexible
natural expressions of the status.

I like to try to think of making notifications more generally useful than
being tied to a single protocol.

This is also related to the `notification naming conventions' discussion
on elvin-dev following the Ticker workshop (archives at
http://elvin.dstc.edu.au/ListArchive/elvin-dev/archive/2001/09/); it's
something that's required to realise the full strength of Elvin's
decoupling, extensibility, etc.

Ian