SAMP draft document introduction

[Alasdair Allan]

Mark Taylor wrote:
> Alasdair Allan wrote:
>> The immediate problem I have with the document is that  I'm a  
>> little unsure how the mtype mapping from what is outlined in  
>> section 5 to XML-RPC method names works in practice?
>
> MTypes do not map to XML-RPC method names, they map to (parts of)  
> XML-RPC method arguments, specifically the value of the "mtype" key  
> in the "message" map-type argument.

Sorry, didn't really say what I meant.

> The pseudo-code excerpt from sec 4.4...shows how it works.  The  
> explanation for why this is what you do is in sec 3.8.

Going back over those sections a couple of times makes it a bit  
clearer and I think I know what's going on now. I'm a bit concerned  
about adding asynchronous calls into the protocol, but from previous  
discussions I know I'm going to loose if I advocate for synchronous  
only, so I'm not going to try that again... I'm pretty happy I think.

> ... I think it would be a good idea if I added an example in sec  
> 3.8 of an encoded message, to make it clearer what I'm going on  
> about there.

I think that might be helpful.

>> Based on the specification I'll try and put together a  
>> demonstration Perl SAMP hub (and a couple of simple clients) in  
>> time for the May meeting. It'll be good to have a few prototypes  
>> kicking around.
>
> that would be great - it would certainly go a long way towards  
> testing whether there are things we've forgotten to think about or  
> to write down. Since this is all still under discussion you might  
> need to revise the implementations in accordance with decisions yet  
> to be made, but I'm sure you can cope with that.  I'm plannning to  
> write a Java hub reasonably soon assuming we reach agreement, but  
> most likely not before Trieste.

Okay, I'll try ad put something together by Trieste then...

Cheers,
Al.