Re: Making prerequisites easy

[Tom Tromey <tromey cygnus com>]

>> In the case you cited (audio), and perhaps more generally, I would
>> prefer modular functionality over prerequisites.

In this case I'd prefer to have the applications only loosely coupled
to audio.  I've mentioned this before... applications could generate
events when something interesting happens.  A different (entirely
optional and separate) application could listen to events and turn
them into audio according to arbitrarily-hairy user criteria.

Elliot> The problem with modularity is that in some cases it is on the
Elliot> other side of the fence from tight integration ;-)

I think clashes between modularity and integration usually result from
poor factoring.

A positive side effect of using CORBA is that it (hopefully) forces
the designer to think more clearly about the factoring that is taking
place.  I think this is because the IDL somehow seems less malleable
than ordinary code.  At least, that's the case for me.

Tom