Brad, DESIGN changes should never be looked at as an insult to the CODER. If the design needs to be changed, it's the fault of the DESIGNER. I never said there is something wrong with your code for Loci's middle or that you 'code like a first grader'. In fact, it has been very valuable for the evolution and progression of the project. Maybe we need to have a Brad Appreciation Day ;-) As one of the designers of this project, I recognize a problem in the new design. The problem was not there a couple months ago when I implored you to make an XML-based, streaming dialog that runs through a socket. (YES, I KNOW THAT YOU WANTED A CORBA API, AND I SAID NO.) You insisted on CORBA everywhere, and Tada! that's the way it seems we're now going. But, why are we going that way? Why have things changed? BECAUSE NOW WE ARE TRYING TO GLUE GMS AND OVERFLOW TO LOCI, AND BECAUSE CORBA, NOT SOCKETS, WAS CHOSEN AS THE GLUE! (Sorry about my own tirade there.) What is the problem? Loci front -> middle HAS NOT BECOME VSh front -> middle and I simply think it should have. IOW, my original design for a front -> middle API (and all of the code you wrote) was set aside, and the same sort of thing was made in CORBA for a VSh front -> middle API. IMO, THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAME THING. What we have now is... [Loci front -> middle] -> VSh middle VSh front -> middle (DL -> BL) could have been your XML-based command stream through a socket, as I originally designed and wanted for Loci. I could have continued to say no to CORBA, but the interest and experience both you and Jarl have with it, was overwhelming. I am making consessions to democracy for the sake of the collaboration. So, maybe it was a mistake to have said no to CORBA in the first place. Maybe it was a mistake to have split the front and middle of Loci. Had I listened to you, we wouldn't be in this situation. My bad. But we're in this situation. All I can say is that if it bothers you, we'll keep the UI -> DL API. And we can all say it is Jeff's fault. We COULD also consider combining Loci's middle with the VSh BL (using C-Python bindings) and keep the front -> middle communication in sockets. But I won't make the mistake again of planning a major change in your code. I'll leave it up to you. What route should we take? Jeff -- +----------------------------------+ | J.W. Bizzaro | | | | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ | | | | BIOINFORMATICS.ORG | | The Open Lab | | | | http://bioinformatics.org/ | +----------------------------------+