🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jul25.045719.21115@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> cfields@athena.mit.edu (Craig Fields) writes:
	[functionality discussion deleted]
     With the calendar program, the recipients will eventually
   "incorporate" their new meetings. These new meetings will come up in a
   distinct window at this point. Meetings may be tagged as "tentative,"
   "final," or "cancelled," though in the case of just having received a
   new meeting it is much more likely to be "tentative."

     At this point the recipient has the option of responding to the
   (proposed) meeting time one of "yes," "no," or "maybe," along with a
   bit of text for a counter-proposal time or whatever s/he may wish to
   say about it. In addition to this, the recipient chooses whether to
   add this appointment to the calendar or not, and whether or not it
   should show up as time that s/he is "busy."

     These responses are returned through the server to the initiator of
   the proposed meeting, who may decide either to finalize that meeting
   time, or to cancel that meeting proposal and initiate a new one for a
   different time. Finalizations and cancellations of meetings will again
   go through the server to the recipients.

     So does anyone see any major problems with this?

Where to begin.  First off, nothing I say should be seen as a slam against
Craig, his program (which I haven't seen), or anyone else doing calendar/
scheduling systems.  Craig wanted to know what the problems might be, so
here are a few off the top of my head.

First off, there are the standard problems with using email for
notifications in that (1) you can't tell when/if a message is delivered; (2)
you can't tell when/if someone's read the message you're interested in.

Second, the idea of incorporation looks at first glance something like the
transaction problem in databases.  What will happen when two people have
"incorporated" the meeting into their calendars, but then the organizer
decides to change it as a result of one person's objection?  Can the other
calendars be reliably "rolled back" to the state they were in before
incorporation?  Remember that other (valid) events may have been
incorporated between the original time and the time you want to try a
rollback.

Third, if someone wants to counter-propose, how will they know a good time
to suggest?  Will they have access to the same set(s) of calendars that the
meeting originator did?

The concept of adding an appointment but not having the time show up as busy
strikes me as kind of odd and likely to increase your rate of collisions.

Fifth, if I have made a response/counter-proposal to a meeting, how long
must I wait to know if that time is committed or if my suggestion will be
adopted?  Do I see other people's counter-proposals?

None of these are total show-stoppers, but you *did* ask...

--
--Alan Wexelblat
Bull Worldwide Information Systems	internet: wex@pws.bull.com
phone: (508) 294-7485 (new #)		Usenet: spdcc.com!slug!wex
"Zen is the essense of Christianity, of Buddhism, of culture, of all that is
good in the daily life of ordinary people.  But that does not mean we are
not to smash it flat if we get the slightest opportunity."