Bill, I think ALL standards participants can stand a regular healthy
reminder about the 80/20 rule... how we should keep focused on
standardizing well the 20% of objects, elements or attributes that will
provide 80% of the key interoprable function. Your findings, although not
specific, do act as such a reminder.
I have been urging in past Plenary and Steering Committee meetings that
one of the most beneficial services the PWG can provide is further Printer
MIB interop testing. In the absence of a firm commitment to achieve this
your recommendation to mandate (for WIMS) only essential elements that are
known to be well supported is a good one.
----------------------------------------------
Harry Lewis
IBM STSM
Chairman - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
http://www.pwg.org
IBM Printing Systems
http://www.ibm.com/printers
303-924-5337
----------------------------------------------
wamwagner at comcast.net
Sent by: owner-wims at pwg.org
09/01/2005 06:37 PM
To
"'wims at pwg.org'" <wims at pwg.org>
cc
Subject
WIMS> Reflections on a (MIB) walk
I just had occasion to MIB walk through a few implementations of a table
or two in the printer MIB, in several standard products including some
from the most predominant members of the industry. Remembering the
discussion and consideration that went into the objects, it is an eye
opener to see with what carelessness (or is it intentional sabotage) these
things are implemented. Granted, looking at the spec after all this time,
there are some ambiguities. But it often looks like someone just thru in
arbitrary values for some objects. "Mandatory" means nothing. Since most
management applications use private mibs, manufacturers appear not to put
any effort into validating the general MIB.Or else the objects are of so
little use that no one cares if the values are valid.
Aside from being discouraging, I think there is a lesson here that we may
apply to our on-going work. Keep things simple; don't expect that anyone
cares if you label an element mandatory; if they have a use for it, it
will be implemented. Let's not slavishly import things from the printer
MIB or other sources, or even strive for completeness. The criteria for
inclusion must be the clear need for the element as evidenced by existing
use or indisputable future requirement.
As for having a Printer MIB 2 cook-off (a non-proprietary bake-off),
getting consistent implementations may be important to some people, but
apparently not to manufacturers. I doubt anyone would come.
Bill Wagner
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