Reviving the xPL Schema definition discussion

[Gerry Duprey <gerry@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy,

A while back, I brought up the topic of finding a formalized way to encode
the xPL schema specification into a means that was machine parsable.  My
thinking was this format could be used by programs to know how to
receive/send messages to new devices and could be the "source"
documented
that is processed into a more human readable HTML document.

Right now, schemas are defined in plain text documents.  While they are
pretty reasonably formatted, there are variation in terminology and
structure leading to some questions that may not be fully answered by a
developer looking to use that schema the first time.

By formalizing this, it would remove much of the possibility for ambiguity
and allow an even more dynamic xPL network to exist.  The schema documents
can be hosted in a common place with a machine readable directory (just
like
the plugins files) so that an application, on first encountering messages
for a schema it's not previously heard from, could fetch the document,
parse
it and adjust itself accordingly.

Anyway, at the time (about October 12th), there was some discussion, but
not
too much more.  I'd like to get back to this at some point (once I get my
UPB xPL modules complete) and thought I'd bring it back up (you can go back
to that message in the archives for a summary of an initial XML file format
proposal).

Any thoughts?  Should this move forward, stay in discussion mode for a
while
or just be dropped?

NOTE: It's important to realize that, like the vendor plugin file, this is
an optional thing -- a vendor could introduce a new schema class/type
without it and devices/programs would be under no obligation to have to
support reading/parsing it, but it would be there for devices that can
support it (like my currently languishing xPL user interface builder).

Thanks,

Gerry
--
Gerry Duprey
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
http://www.cdp1802.org