[pclasses-devel] what role should s11n play?

[stephan b. <st...@s1...>]

Returning to Marc's comments about s11n support on IRC today 
(yesterday?):

How big of a role would you like s11n to play in the P distribution? We 
have at least these options:

a) i can integrate P::s11n directly into P's tree. This requires a 
dependency on libs11n. Since s11n will be 1.0.0 in a few days, 
stability shouldn't be too much of a concern. However, s11n isn't yet 
ported to Windows, and i don't know how difficult it would be to port 
it (it uses very, very little Unix-only code, but porting build process 
would be a lot of work).

b) Add optional support for s11n directly into the P tree, so the dep on 
s11n is optional. i think this will turn into a huge #ifdef problem, 
though, and probably cause dev problems for developers not using the 
s11n support.

c) Provide no s11n-related support in the main P distribution, and i can 
provide P::s11n as an add-on. IMO this is the most practical, cleanest 
approach, with the least pain for the developers. We can keep P::s11n 
either in the s11n CVS tree or the P CVS tree, whichever you prefer.

???

Right now i'm more focused on seeing P2 reach a usable state than i am 
in extending the current P::s11n code (it works with P1, CVS version - 
but only with the hacked copy on my box). Once the IOManager is working 
and has at least one supported protocol i can really start with the 
P2::s11n support. i've already started some minor architectural changes 
in s11n 1.1-dev to make the P::s11n implementation easier to do.

To be clear, s11n can be used in lots of P contexts other than IO/Net, 
like App or Pref serialization, but it is the IO/Net options which are 
ultimately the most interesting. Why? Because we can already serialize 
objects, but we can't yet do it over the net. i really want to see the 
network channels working :). The prototype code works, and so i know P 
can do this, but P2 isn't yet in a state to support it. Soon... soon...


-- 
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"...pleasure is a grace and is not obedient to the commands
of the will." -- Alan W. Watts