Re: [Introspector-developers] Status report / Call for ideas

[Mike G. <mik...@ya...>]

--- James Michael DuPont <mdu...@ya...> wrote:
<snip>
> please respond back and tell me if you see that we
> are going in the same direction. Also note that we 
> are talking about a high level plan for the next two
> years here, not something that is done overnight.

Mike, thanks for the update on Introspector.  The plan
that you lay out looks sound ...but not for the faint
of heart ;)  Anyways, I'll take a 1st cut at feedback
and ideas....

> Here is my proposal for components of the 
> introspector :
> Data extraction, manipulation, visualization, and
> generation.

excellent!  I'm thinking that a 5th component might be
in order:  a "knowledge acquisition" component.  Idea
being for the Introspector user to gain knowledge or
insight about a particular facet.  I see visualization
tools doing some of this, but I see the need to be
able to easily be able to gain insight to things like:

     'what does this method do?'
     'what is the purpose of this lib?'
     'what does this compiler switch setting do?'
> 
> 1. The ability to extract meta-data from existing
> programs
> this meta data is 
> a. what structures are defined in your program

good.

> b. what functions are declared and defined

you betcha!

> c. which functions use what functions, etc.

AMEN!!!

ok, the rest of the presented material looks good at
first blush....especially the libXML approach.  

Here's a couple of random thoughts:

wrt scripting notion, how about an external control
mechanism for Instrospector (maybe xmlRPC) too?

I think that working up some use-cases for
Introspector would be helpful at this point.  Bredth
and depth!  Some system level ones (bredth) would be
great for helping to convey the 'big picture' of what
Introspector is all about.  Component level (depth)
use cases would be good to provide some specific
glimpes of Introspector in action wrt graphs (VCG),
diagrams (Dia), etc.  The later could be very usefull
in communicating with and/or enlisting support from
other opensource teams, or to get feedback on existing
tools/techniques for certain aspects of Introspector
functionality.

well, thats all I have time for now...more to follow. 


Keep up the good work!

Mike G.

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