[bind10-dev] Format for the Packet Between BigTool and Configure Manager

[Michael Graff]

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My take on this is that we should first define what commands we want to
support, and then decide on what types to use for them, and add to that
what types we expect we will need.

The control channel API itself handles "opaque blobs" (which are usually
just UTF-8 strings), "lists" (ordered list), "hashes" (tag/value pairs),
and NULL type (used only in lists and hashes to indicate no data at that
element or tags without data.)

Some comments:

I like to include a sequence number on all messages sent.  This can be
added automatically somewhere, but the sequence is handy for one simple
reason:  it allows replies to be matched up with commands.  Either this,
or there needs to be a requirement that commands are only processed in
the order they are received.  For status and other commands, it might be
nice to get the data back in any order.  What are your thoughts on this?

Also, on type 'string' either those need to be always defined as UTF-8
or we need an encoding="" parameter on those.  I would just as soon say
UTF-8 encoding on all string values.

Will we ever want binary blobs?  I don't know if we'll ever be
transmitting things like images around or not.  It might be cool for a
UI to get little icons, for instance.  :)

- --Michael

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