Feedback from UHKA 2003

[Patrick Lidstone]

Some feedback I got about xAP from UKHA 2003.

- David Buckley pointed out reliability is an issue - xAP messages
can potentially be dropped by the network (although I've never seen
it happen yet, I agree it *could* happen). I think we can solve this
to a certain extent by including an optional sequence number in the
header - the receiver could then potentially detect a missed message,
but there are a number of subtleties involved here, and I don't think
we want to add any more complexity to the protocol - perhaps with a
bit of imagination we can come up with a cheap & easy fix?

- Ian B. has done a great job on device configuration (and I was able
to get serial bridging working just fine with his relay board at the
meet - cool!). I think we should review his mechanisms and ratify
them/something similar as the de-facto standard.

- People asking "what are we going to do about.../when will you have
support for...". I think it would be worth putting together a
wishlist and roadmap of where we hope to be in terms of apps etc over
the next few months.

I think that's about it. I had a good time, even if my head didn't :-
), and it was good to catch up with fellow xAP developers.

Patrick