Re: MType vocabulary design principles

From: Mike Fitzpatrick <fitz-at-noao.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:08:10 -0700


I agree with John on this.

In the interest of generality I'd prefer a simple app.status mtype that asks simply
to process a status message (Mark has a point about 'app.event.status', but this
isn't really an event per se and we can define 'app.status' in the form of a request (e.g. 'please process this status') if needed). If we have just the one mtype
defined to be a status string then senders can write what they like, and receivers
who subscribe only need to support displaying it in some way. If a sender wants to
put it in terms of time/percent/frogs that's fine, but the receiver only needs to
put up a string in a dialog and not care about the format. Leave the "*.percent"
to apps that want to display a progress bar as a GUI element to be worked out
by themselves with an app-specific mtype.

Percent and timeLeft I think cover most cases, but if it means opening mtypes to
arbitrary optional args I'd just as soon drop it for a common app.status that says
you'll get a string to display/log/whatever.

-Mike Received on 2008-06-12Z11:08:12