[Pipet Devel] summary for web page and announcements

J.W. Bizzaro bizzaro at geoserve.net
Mon Apr 24 12:05:56 EDT 2000


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/    |
                      +----------------------------------+




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