Re: [BuildStream] API proposal - enable iterating through all elements

[Thomas Coldrick <thomas coldrick codethink co uk>]

Hi,

I'd just like to add my support to access to some sort of API that 
allows third
parties to load bst elements and play around with them properly. This 
would have
been useful in a few places really, not only this mirror/alias checking. For
another example, the issue asking for a `bst format`[0] would be much 
more suitable
as an external tool using BuildStream API.

I understand that allowing this would likely be a bit of an avalanche of 
making API
public though, and we should be careful not to make everything public. 
Perhaps it
would be possible to expose a set of high level wrappers of internal 
functions as
some sort of "libbuildstream", allowing people access to loading etc. to 
produce
linters and project analysis tools?

Cheers,

Tom