Re: Continuing discussion of oaf ...

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com> writes:

>         Yes; I read it; I thought I had replied to it, but I can't find it
> now. It solves some of the problems, however I don't think we actualy need
> to do this withing the current framework.

Hi Michael,

>         * Elliot said he was against enforcing anything but the 'OAFIID:'
>         prefix.
>   
>         * We all agree that activating by OAFIID is the right thing to do
>         in some circumstances.
>   
>         * We already have a clean namespace, that has at least as many    
>         interfaces as implementations [ cf. the number of interfaces Excel
>         exports and the number of implementations (1) ].

I don't think this is true in whatever way you read it:

"that has at least as many interfaces as implementations" -

        That's already wrong when two components implement something like
        IDL:Nautilus/ViewFrame:1.0.

"that has at least as many implementations as interfaces" -

        Harder to proof that this is wrong, but the fact that you're allowed
        to write and install an .idl file without actually implementing it
        should be proof enough.

What I want to say with this is that if you call X the number of interfaces
we have and Y the number of implementations we have, then there is no relation
between X and Y - so you cannot say whether X or Y is larger than the other,
for instance.

However, I think we can assume X < Y long-term if X is large enough - so we will
have more implementations than interfaces.

>         * We can make the UUID optional [ this is essentialy what you
>         suggest, but you add the capability to resolve Namespacing cockups
>         which _must_ never happen ]                

You misunderstood me. According to my proposal, the UUID is an essential and
required part of the component naming scheme and you cannot leave it away neither
in the .oafinfo file nor in the factory implementation function.

I just suggest that it should be allowed to use the short form (without the UUID)
when _activating_ an object - so, technically, this'll be an oaf_query for a
component which has an OAFIID which starts with that name. If there'll ever be
a conflict in the short form, oaf will just choose one of them (with the
possibility to specify which one in a config file).

>         * I don't see how your scheme is different to just dropping the   
>         massive UUID, nor do I see how it helps the problems of cutting
>         and pasting these strings. I would prefer just to drop the UUID  
>         and properly namespace the string ( which will be neccessary with
>         your scheme anyway ). 

You need to cut and paste these strings anyways, so there's no difference.

-- 
Martin Baulig
martin gnome org (private)
baulig suse de (work)