Re: [rtcweb] DataChannels API and external negotiation

[Peter Thatcher <[e-mail]>]

Randell, thanks for explaining.  I think it's a valid use case to say
"I don't want the in-band open message, but I do want you to choose
the SID for me".  In that case, I'm OK with a separate flag meaning
"send the in-band open message", and I'd prefer a name like
"sendOpenMessage" or "sendControlMessages", which would default to
true.

On "sid", If you don't like "sid", I'm OK with "id", or even
"streamid", but I prefer "id" over "streamid".  I don't like "index".

On "millis" vs. "millsecs", the closest thing in HTML I could find was
the Date object, which has "getMilliseconds".  That would lean us
toward "maxRetransmitMillieseconds", which seems too long.  But I
don't care too much about this name, and would be happy with any of
"maxRetransmitMs" or "maxRetransmitMillis",
"maxRetransmitMilliseconds", "maxRetransmitTime" or
"maxRetransmitDuration".

On "reliable: false", I'd say it's a synonym for "maxRetransmits: 0".
You can have "{ordered: true; reliable: false"} or "{ordered: false;
reliable: true}", which is the same as "{ordered:true,
maxRetransmits:0}" or "{ordered:false}", respectively.

Michael, you don't have to set "reliable: true", since that's the
default.  This is only to allow "reliable: false" as a more readable
and easy to understand way of saying "maxRetransmits: 0".  It's purely
a convenience synonym.

Finally, if it's possible for us to make such a breaking change, I do
think it makes sense to optionally allow the browser to choose the
label, just as it optionally chooses the sid.  As such, I'll include
that idea in the dictionary I propose below so that createDataChannel
would take only one argument, this dictionary (like so:
createDataChannel({"label: XYZ", ...}).  If everyone else dislikes
this idea, then so be, take out that field and keep the rest.  I feel
more strongly about the rest of the names and options than I do about
that one.  But if we can make the change, I think it makes the method
cleaner and more flexible.


So, I update my proposed dictionary to be the following:

dictionary DataChannelInit {
  DOMString label;  //  default: chosen by browser.
  DOMString protocol;  // default: undefined
  unsigned short id;  // default: chosen by browser.
  boolean ordered = true;
  boolean reliable = true;  //  false is just a synonym for maxRetransmits: 0.
  unsigned short maxRetransmits;  // default:  "forever"
  unsigned short maxRetransmitMilliseconds;  // default: "forever"
  boolean sendOpenMessage = true;
};

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Randell Jesup <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Adding W3 list back ("Reply List" replies to one list in TB), since this
> really is a W3 item anyways.
>
>
> On 4/3/2013 12:19 PM, Randell Jesup wrote:
>>
>> On 4/3/2013 12:05 PM, Peter Thatcher wrote:
>>>
>>> I think moving protocol into the dictionary is a good idea.   In fact,
>>> I'd like to see label move there as well, but that's probably asking
>>> too much.
>>>
>>> And now for a little of my own bikeshedding:
>>>
>>> I don't understand way we have "stream" and "preset", since you can
>>> only set "stream" if "preset" is true.  Why not just make the rule "if
>>> stream is set, no in-band message is sent", and get rid of "preset"
>>> altogether?  I really don't like the word "stream" sneaking in, since
>>> it's so overloaded (MediaStream, RTP Stream, etc).  I'd prefer "sid"
>>> or just "id".
>>
>>
>> The reason was that I wanted a way to have the system select a stream to
>> use (that you can then communicate externally to the other side); this
>> avoids any chance of a collision with existing streams. If this is seen as
>> not useful, then we can collapse it to a single entry.   (I also toyed with
>> using stream 65535 as a flag to tell the system to allocate one; that seemed
>> too hacky.)
>>
>> Since this option was almost solely for those who understand the
>> underlying SCTP-ness of this, I used "stream", but I'm fine with "streamId"
>> or "id" (or "index" might be better than "id", which sounds like a label of
>> some sort).  I dislike "sid" for similar reasons to disliking "rtx".
>>
>>> I like the idea that reliable+ordered is the default, and both
>>> reliability and ordered can be set independently.  I also prefer
>>> "ordered" over "outOfOrderAllowed", and along with that I like the
>>> idea of a "reliable" flag that, if false, is the equivalent of either
>>> maxRetransmitNum:0 or maxRetransmitTime:0.  Finally, I think
>>> "maxRetransmitTime" should make its units clear, perhaps calling it
>>> "maxRetransmitMillis", and "maxRetransmitNum" could be shortened to
>>> simply "maxRetransmits".
>>
>>
>> Those seem reasonable (I'd use Millisec/MilliSec or perhaps MS instead of
>> Millis -- how are millisecond time values in other HTML5 specs described?).
>> On "reliable:false" - is this just a shorthand for "ordered:false,
>> maxRetransmits:0"?  If so, I'm probably ok with it - it's redundant, but
>> makes it easy to use/read for a common case.
>>
>>>
>>> So the dictionary for my bikeshed would be:
>>>
>>> dictionary DataChannelInit {
>>>    DOMString protocol;
>>>    unsigned short id;
>>>    boolean ordered;
>>>    boolean reliable;
>>>    unsigned short maxRetransmits;
>>>    unsigned short maxRetransmitMillis;
>>> };
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Randell Jesup
> [e-mail]
>
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