Re: ServiceInfo, service stereotypes, etc.

[Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com>]

Hi Elliot,

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Elliot Lee wrote:
> I skimmed through all the various msgs, and it seems to me that the
> requirements so far are (a) having OAF aware of services

        Correct; requires no changes AFAICS, we merely add a service_ids
stringv.

> (b) being able to use QI to determine whether an object supports a
> service.

        Well; OO uses a separate interface for this higher level contract
called the XServiceInfo interface. It provides several useful methods for
debugging.
          
> Making an interface in the IDL to denote the service, and building a
> service name -> interface names mapping in OAF, would allow satisfying
> both of these requirements AFAICS.
  
        We do not want to make a contentless interface in the IDL to
denote the service. And it is not always feasible to use an existing
interface to denote the service as you suggested ie.
  
        service Tank {
                interface Gun;
                interface Tracks;
        };
 
        It is not feasible to use either of these interfaces to denote the
service 'Tank'. IMHO the service lives in the same conceptual namespace as
the interface, and so we should not have service / interface name clashes.
 
> And if you want to preface your interface names with 'X', 'I', or a
> Klingon 'tlh', knock yourself out, but I will stick to no prefacing
> myself, and not be worried about recommending it to others. :)
 
        Precicely; and in Bonobo instead of doing this:

        service Tank {                  - the case where you rightly
                interface XTank;          suggest that we should just
                interface Gun;            use the 'Tank' as the service
                interface Tracks;         label and kill XTank
        };
          
        I would reccommend doing this where possible:

        service Tank {
                interface TankSpecification;
                interface Gun;
                interface Tracks;
        };
          
        or whatever, thus avoiding the ( odious to me ) 'X' prefix, of
course OO can keep their X's as they wish.

        Regards,

                Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot