Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] V3 Comments on "BBN's Proposed extensions for data networking"

[Eric Blossom]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 02:37:54PM -0500, Michael Dickens wrote:
> On Thursday, June 15, 2006, at 11:46 AM, Eric Blossom wrote:
> >On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 08:37:48AM -0400, Michael Dickens wrote:
> >>
> >>Hmmm ... good point.  In a dynamic system, ports could get dropped or
> >>connected "on the fly".  Could you write a quick blurp about this,
> >>somewhere before 4.9?  Maybe 4.6.8 or 4.8.6?
> >
> >I think we're approaching the "polishing the turd" stage...

OK, maybe we're not polishing ;)

> My point was that, all the sudden in 4.9, it's mentioned that "oh, and 
> there can be unconnected ports".  As the reading, I was caught unaware 
> of this as an option, since there had never been mention of it before.  

My theory on this document is less is more.  This is addressed more to
David than to you.  The semi-formal spec for the portref lists a min
and max replication count.  One could infer that a min of 0 and a
max of 1 would indicate that a port was "optionally connected".

> Further, there was no rationale given for their existence; it was just 
> stated.

To allow substitutability of mblocks for other mblocks.

Eric