RE: WIMS> CIM> Status of CRs in Core: passed. And new news.

From: Richard_Landau@Dell.com
Date: Mon Aug 20 2007 - 12:32:50 EDT

  • Next message: McDonald, Ira: "RE: WIMS> CIM> Status of CRs in Core: passed. And new news."

    Wow, I must have been more unclear than usual. I managed to confuse the
    issue completely. Sorry. Blame it on Friday. I was trying to suggest
    relaxing a number of associations, particularly CIM_PrinterComponent,
    but only in the places where it is currently used, not new locations.

     

    The changes I am suggesting are these:

     

    1. Add the MIN(1) cardinality to the subunit side of the
    CIM_PrinterComponent association.

     

    2. Use this association only between CIM_Printer and the mandatory
    subunits of a Printer. Our class diagram already states exactly which
    of the subunits have minimum cardinality one: InputTray, OutputTray,
    MediaPath, Marker, Channel, and Interpreter.

     

    (Note that AlertLog by convention uses a different association to
    Printer.) (Also note that, erroneously, I have PrinterSettingData
    marked as cardinality one, too; I will fix that. It also uses a
    different association by convention.)

     

    3. For the other subunits, where the minimum cardinality is zero, relax
    the model's association between CIM_Printer and the subunit to
    CIM_Dependency. That is, use CIM_Dependency between CIM_Printer and the
    optional subunits: Interlock, Supply, Finisher, and ConsoleLight.

     

    4. If in the future someone were to make another subunit mandatory that
    is currently optional, one could change the association between
    CIM_Printer and the subunit to CIM_PrinterComponent. Since
    CIM_Dependency is the parent class of CIM_PrinterComponent, this is a
    legal change in CIM : no semantics are lost and additional semantics are
    gained by using the subclass instead of the parent.

     

    5. The two proposed associations between Finisher and MediaPath and
    OutputTray are currently trivial subclasses of CIM_Depencency. Relax
    the model's associations to CIM_Dependency, the parent class, since no
    semantic value is gained by trivially subclassing this class.

     

    6. If we decide to to #5, then we can withdraw the CRs to create these
    two new associations before they get to TC for vote.

     

    Boy, I hope that's clearer. Again, I apologize for the over-abbreviated
    and confusing message.

     

    rick

     

    ________________________________

    From: McDonald, Ira [mailto:imcdonald@sharplabs.com]
    Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 12:34
    To: Landau, Richard; wims@pwg.org
    Subject: RE: WIMS> CIM> Status of CRs in Core: passed. And new news.

    Hi Rick,
     
    About this PrinterComponent usage - NONE of our association MOFs use
    the PrinterComponent association - they ALL use CIM_Dependency (which
    is correct CIM usage). Only the CIM_Printer to subunit association
    would be
    affected. That is, CIM_AssociatedMediaPath has nothing to do with
    PrinterComponent - it references PrinterElement (the data class) via
    CIM_PrintMediaPath.
     
    Choosing only the mandatory subunits is a slippery slope - it means that
    a Printer MIB v3 can't make more subunits mandatory (which is indeed
    plausible) and be easily reflected in the CIM model.
     
    Cheers,
    - Ira
     
     

    Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
    Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
    Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
    PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
    phone: +1-906-494-2434
    email: imcdonald@sharplabs.com

    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-wims@pwg.org [mailto:owner-wims@pwg.org]On Behalf Of
    Richard_Landau@Dell.com
    Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 5:34 PM
    To: wims@pwg.org
    Subject: WIMS> CIM> Status of CRs in Core: passed. And new news.

    The two CRs that were balloted this week, AssociatedPrintOutputTray and
    AssociatedPrintMediaPath, will be forwarded to TC. Yay.

    There was a question about cardinality. I conferred with Ira and
    responded that the relationships between Finisher and MediaPath (and
    OutputTray) are many-to-many, so cardinality need not be specified. I
    updated the two CRs with the issue and response, resubmitted them to
    DMTF, and reposted them to the WIMS-CIM FTP site.

    Also, he (Crandall) did not understand that Finisher is optional while
    MediaPath and OutputTray are mandatory. We perhaps did not make that
    sufficiently explicit in the modeling, and he thinks we should. The
    Visio diagram is clear about cardinalities, but we should make it
    clearer in the association MOFs that some components are required and
    others are optional.

    For example, we should add MIN(1) to the CIM_PrinterComponent
    association and then use that for only the mandatory subunits. For the
    optional subunits (Interlock, Finisher, ConsoleLight, Supply), we can
    use simply CIM_Component.

    And he asked why we are doing these specific associations at all if they
    do not contain any additional semantics. He feels that we could use
    plain old CIM_Dependency (from which these two are subclassed) if there
    is no additional information: no new properties, no new cardinality
    restrictions. (Yes, eventually, we will learn all the rules.) If we
    wish, we can withdraw these anytime before they are voted on in TC; we
    have at least a week to decide. My thought: sure, why not. If we don't
    need more specific classes, let's not define them. I will be happy to
    redraw the class diagram.

    rick
    ----------------------
    Richard_Landau(at)dell(dot)com, Stds & System Mgt Architecture, CTO
    Office
    +1-512-728-9023, One Dell Way, RR5-3, MS RR5-09, Round Rock, TX 78682

    No virus found in this outgoing message.
    Checked by AVG Free Edition.
    Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.0/961 - Release Date:
    8/19/2007 7:27 AM



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Aug 20 2007 - 12:33:12 EDT