[Xastir-dev] Topic: Supported Platforms, Xastir-NG

[Tom Russo]

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 03:56:35PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <archer at eskimo.com> flavor, containing:
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> 
> > It's time.  I've been doing some thinking about Xastir-NG.  Several
> > main things need be decided before coding can begin.  This topic is
> > one of them:
> > 
> > 
> >     What platforms would we _like_ to support?
> > 
> >     What platforms _can_ we support?
> 
> Let's go another direction with this, 
[...]
> 
> At the moment I'm interested solely in the Xastir Daemon end of
> things.  The GUI clients can be written in entirely different
> languages:  In fact we can write one reference implementation of
> each, then others can duplicate the clients in other languages if
> they wish.
> 
> Developers:  Let's hear from you!  Am I on the right track?  

I don't think this is the right track, actually.

I think the right track does not start with questions like "which database
back-end should we standardize on?"  The right approach would develop an
appropriate OO interface to a database package, against which all the 
actors that use the database are written --- and we can implement as many
variants of the database package as needed, so long as they are written
to present the same interface.

If we're gonna go OO, let's do OO design rather than just use an OO language.

A better starting track might be to design what packages (in the 
OO design lingo, not the linux lingo) are going to be needed to accomplish 
the job, then start considering what they'll have to do and how they'll have
to be written.  

Properly done, we should not be designing around database engines, graphical
toolkits, or anything like that.  We should be designing around an abstraction,
and meshing those choices to that abstraction.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "It's so simple to be wise: just think of something stupid to say and
  then don't say it."  --- Sam Levinson