Subject: Format for interface descriptions in OGSA-D
From: "Dave Berry" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:01:32 -0000

Folks, 

On yesterday's telcon we discussed how to describe interfaces in the
OGSA Data Architecture document.  I undertook to draft a straw man
description of the ByteIO interface as an example.  I attach this draft
for comment.  (Note: it is based on the ByteIO interface described in
our document, which is significantly out of date.  What we're interested
in here is the format, not the content).

On the telcon we agreed that we wanted to abstract away the details of
the operations such as their names and the names and types of their
parameters.  This is so that (a) we don't swamp our readers with detail,
and (b) we don't have to keep changing our document to track changes in
the detailed specification.  On the other hand, we do want to describe
the key operations, so that (a) readers can better understand what the
interface does, and (b) we show how the interface will interact with
other parts of the system.

I'm not wedded to the format in the attachment.  It is purely intended
as a starting point for discussion.

Best wishes,

Dave.