Re: Proposal for reporting remote control button presses to userland

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:27:56 +0000
David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 04:25:28PM -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
>  > > > if we do use XML we should think hard about the actual data
>  > > > returned -- envstat has far too much knowledge of what it's
>  > > > seeing).
>  > 
>  > Why does envstat have lines like
>  > 
>  >    if (strcmp(sensor->type, "Fan") == 0) {
>  >              stype = "RPM";  
>  > 
>  > Why does it need to know the units, hard-wired in, for every sensor
>  > type?  Why does every sound card have its own set of names visible
>  > to mixerctl?
> 
> Because we need schema definitions for these data streams, and we
> don't have them. Nor do we (AFAIK) have a language or specification
> format for proplib schemas.
> 
> (Well, we need more than schema definitions that merely exist; they
> also need to be good schemas that have had some polishing. But having
> schema definitions makes it practical to do that polishing.)
> 
Right, precisely my point.  Without good schema, we're paying the price
for XML but not getting the benefits.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb