Re: New faces application & faces monitoring in general

Axel Belinfante (Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl)
Mon, 01 Mar 93 15:10:29 +0100

Sorry for not taking part in the discussion on the list:
right before the discussion started, i went for a short vacation -
only to see the 'results' of the discussion after my return.

'Technical' note: I do receive the list, so there is no need to
send direct replies to me, as well as a copy of it to the list -
a reply to the list should suffice, unless you want to send a personal
reply, in which case the list probably doesn't need a copy...

[intro and proposal for forwardding to the list deleted]
> I do, and will. You've identified critical issues that need to be
> addressed for future faces development, and I think your suggestions are
> sound. I understand Rich has plans to divide the faces functionality
> into three components in future releases: a display manager, a database
> server and an application. When that happens, these issues will be
> especially pertinent.

Such a split would make lots of things much easier and more managable,
i suppose.
As you will notice when you look at the ircfaces stuff, it uses the faces
program only as a display program. A perl script does the database lookups,
and forms the interface to the application (ie. the irc client program)
The interface between application and database manager is very much
tailored to the needs of the application.
The interface between the database mananager and the display manager is
very hackish (IMHO) - it uses 'pseudo-mailboxes' that are checked (using
polling, i guess) by the display manager programs (the faces programs)

[description of IrcFaces deleted]

> Sounds interesting. I can place a copy in the faces ftp archive, if
> you'd like.

Please do so.. it would be interesting to get some feedback on it.
(and maybe some people might want to use it - or hack it to fit their
needs ;-)
Can i simply ftp it to the
moose.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/incoming
directory?
I tried to clean up (or at least document) IrcFaces to make it 'usable'
(installable) by a somewhat experienced faces user. Feedback on the doc
(in a README file) would be welcome as well ;-)
As stated in the README file, i don't plan to spend much time on it
anymore, but i guess it might be interesting enough to share it
(at least for me.. wrt feedback ;-)

[description of ideas, and my expression of interest to spend some
time on their implementation deleted]
> Go for it! The bitmap caching optimization could be immediately
> useful.

I guess it might be better to wait until the ideas for the splitted
version of faces are more clear...

> Rich Burridge leads the development for faces. You should be able
> to reach him at richb@stard.eng.sun.com these days.

Ok. i will, when i have more time for hacking, and ideas are clear..

Regards,
Axel.

<Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl> tel. +31 53 893774 fax. +31 53 333815
University of Twente, Tele-Informatics & Open Systems Group
P.O. Box 217 NL-7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands
"ili ne sciis ke estas neebla do ili simple faris" -- Loesje