[Pipet Devel] executing a network script

[Brad Chapman]

> Hmmm.  Is the appending of "_node" something that DOM requires or 
something
> that you came up with?

Not required, just my brilliant idea :-) Seriously, I just try to use 
that so it is easier to distinguish between when you are working with 
dom specifically and when you are working with loci (or piper) 
objects. The code tends to mix because you are getting piper objects 
to put into dom, so I think adding the little _node is just my way to 
make things clear. 
    My overall point is that I just think 'node' is taken up by the 
tools we are using and we should think up something else to describe 
our smallest elements. This will make the code easier to read and 
understand, IMO. I dug using locus, but I don't know how people feel 
about that now. Node was a Overflow term, right?

> The biggest problem is the selection and submission of non-contiguous
> sections
> of a network (e.g., selecting 2 nodes that are separated by one 
unselected
> node in the middle).  While ctrl-button1 click in the UI will/can 
allow this,
> we wouldn't want this submitted to be executed.

Agreed, the error checking should all occur in the dl when it is 
getting it ready for sending to the bl. This way, the bl should be 
able to "count" on having a network definition that is complete and 
ready to run. This will also decrease the time between when a bad 
network is submitted and when it it run.

[...me talking about combining the Loci and Overflow GUIs...]
 
> Bzzzzt.  Of course Jean-Marc can do what he likes with his own GUI, 
but piper
> will have multiple UI's that function differently (some of them 
won't even be
> graphical).  And each will have to construct a PL network in a manner
> consistent with the UI's own style (not to mention, in a manner that 
will
> WORK
> with the PL).  So, we can't embed Overflow into every UI.

Oh absolutely, I'm only talking about getting it into the Gnome UI. 
Whenever other people start on different interfaces, they will be 
starting things fresh and can plug into the framework we are 
developing with the Gnome interface.

> For my Pied (Gnome) UI, I want to make a workspace widget for the PL 
that
> looks and works like the workspace for the BL (i.e., looks and work 
like
> Loci).  It'll be in Python/Gtk.

It just seems like that you both have such similar designs, that there 
isn't some kind of meeting place where we can have some code re-use? 
It just seems like the sooner we are able to get Overflow running 
under Piper the way it is now stand-alone, the sooner we can make 
better use of our resources and not have to be coding separate UIs and 
all of that. I'm just trying to think of ways that we can do that 
sooner, rather than later. I was kind of interested to hear 
Jean-Marc's thoughts on this as well, and how he thinks we can 
expedite the process of getting all of our programs together. So I was 
just trying to brainstorm ideas along those lines :-)

> BTW, the UI interfaces with the PL only through the DL and BL, not 
directly. 
> Correct?

The idea right now is that the UI only talks to the dl, and the only 
way it can talk through it is through the streaming XML dialog "API." 
Everything that the UI can currently talk to the dl about (and how to 
do it) is documented in doc/comProtocols.txt in the loci module in 
cvs. I need to talk some time to clean this documentation up and make 
it more readible (I'll redo it in latex or something), but what we 
have so far is there. Input on problems/suggestions for the interface 
would be super :-)

Brad