A random idea

[Peter Williams <peter newton cx>]

Hi everyone,

	I'd like to punt out an idea that I've been thinking about for a few
days. It's pretty simple: something along the lines of GNOME Standard
Interfaces. It would be a package with a set of generic IDL files and a
library implementing stubs for them. They would be simple interfaces
that could have uses in a wide variety of areas. Bonobo::ItemContainer
is an example of the kind of idea I have in mind - a sort of "widget"
interface; not useful by itself but useful in context. Here are a few
sample ideas that I've thought up:

	GNOME::Hierarchy. An interface for accessing a hierarchichal space such
as a filesystem, an ETree, etc.
	GNOME::AsyncTask. An interface for starting and controlling
asynchronous tasks.
	GNOME::Activatable. For something that can be "turned on" an off (but
would, for example, throw an exception if it were already activated)

	Such a set of standard interfaces would:

	- Give people new to CORBA a correct foundation to start on with
interface design
	- Prevent duplication of code for common interface concepts
	- Allow code to be more widely useful: eg a function
findNode(GNOME::Hierarchy) that will work not only in the situation it
was designed for but more widely as well.

	Right now it seems like a good idea so I thought I'd share it. Do you
all think this sounds like something worth spending time on?

--
Peter Williams     peter newton cx / peterw ximian com

"Why should I have to change my name? He's the one who 
sucks!"                              -- Michael Bolton