NCIP, Standards, and why we need RFCs

So, in attempting to figure out this rather obnoxiously generically defined protocol, I've found that our vendor's implementation of the protocol is not what I would have expected from first attempts. Properly formatted XML with line breaks to denote a new tag in the structure is apparently not desired as the query fails. If I remove all newlines (and I did remove all leading whitespace, though I'd imagine it was possibly unnecessary?) the query was successful. ...not to mention that a test was given where we would access it using Telnet under Microsoft's DOS. Well... MS-DOS prompt's telnet seems to be quite finicky and doesn't work as expected. Using PuTTy seemed to work OK though. Go figure. I'm glad I have that for SSH to our host otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it.

Without an RFC to describe exactly how communication is to be sent, received, and expected...bug testing has become a chore and a bore...not to mention that in trying to get a PHP socket client working just does not seem to be working. I can read information sent from my test server, but I cannot send data to the test server; though it works with PuTTy. If only it were a webservice with SOAP or something similar instead...which is probably what I'd extend this to do anyway, eventually...for use by the consortia.

Oh yes, NCIP v2 should be coming along within the year as well since I believe it's now been passed. Yay. Give me more technical specifications or an actual library example to work from! ARGH!

Posted by Brendon Kozlowski