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[RPRWG] Re: Comments 217-219




All, I am copying the 802.17 reflector on my response to a question sent me
by John Lemon, because I believe my answer contains within it a philosophy
of how we need to be writing our standard, how we need to be listing issues,
and how as reviewers, we all need to be reading our drafts.

The following is my reply to John's request for input regarding my request
for descriptive text in Clause 6 for the effect of receipt of the three
primitives, PHY_DATA.indicate, PHY_LINK_STATUS.indicate, and
PHY_READY.indicate.

John, unfortunately I do not know what the effect of receipt of those
primitives are.  In fact, reading draft 0.3 does not provide me with the
information I would need to write the requested text.  That is the problem
that I was highlighting in these three comments.  The comments noted that
clause 7.2.2 of draft 0.3 defines PHY_DATA.indicate,
PHY_LINK_STATUS.indicate, and PHY_READY.indicate, and states that the effect
of receipt of these primitives by the MAC sublayer is specified in Clause 6.
Do you agree that the effect of receipt of these primitives should be
defined somewhere in the standard?  If so, do you agree with the present
text that they should be defined in Clause 6?  If you think the effect of
receipt should be defined, what person or group would be best to make that
specification?

Let me offer one path for creating this description.  When we have state
diagrams in place, we should be able to search the State Diagram tables for
the primitive names in the input field to the state diagram.  By examining
all instances of those primitives appearing at the inputs, we should be able
to see what the effect of their receipt is.  Would you expect the state
diagrams that include these primitives in the input fields to appear in
Clause 6?  If not, then in what clause would you expect to find them?  Given
this approach, do you want to add these descriptions to the issues list, and
indicate that they should be resolvable once the state diagrams have been
created?  The verbal descriptions could then be added to the clause that
includes the relevant state diagrams.

Best regards,

Robert D. Love
President, Resilient Packet Ring Alliance
President, LAN Connect Consultants
7105 Leveret Circle     Raleigh, NC 27615
Phone: 919 848-6773       Mobile: 919 810-7816
email: rdlove@xxxxxxxx          Fax: 208 978-1187