"Timothy Rue" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > IS there going to be a standard within the Hurd that allows an application > programmer to add an end user oriented port to their program, in a > simplified consistant manner? (i.e. as is found in the ease of adding an > arexx port to amiga applications)
There's no plans for anything like arexx-ports, that I know about. But they could be implemented on the hurd using ipc (which for some reason is usually called "rpc" on the Hurd), and it might be really cute. To do it takes a few different things: 1. A standard for the things you can send and receive on the arexx-like port. IIRC, Arexx on the amiga had one single datatype, some kind of string. That's simple, but kind-of limited. The "argz" strings used in various places in the Hurd might be a natural thing to use. But it would be nice to at least be able to pass around ports and/or port-rights. I don't know anything about the original (IBM?) Rexx. 2. A standard way of finding the application you want to talk to. Registering the Arexx ports as translators in the filesystem seems like a natural way to do it, something like ~/.arexx/emacs for my personal emacs' arexx-port. 3. Language bindings for various popular languages. I doubt rexx will ever be popular, so you'd need bindings for python, perl, guile, ... Sounds like an interesting project. Somethings to look out for: (i) The name. Unless you want to make rexx-the-language central to the project, you should probably invent a new name. (ii) CORBA. I'm sure a lot of CORBA people (including some Gnome folks) will tell you that CORBA is the right answer to your problem and that rexx is just too ugly and primitive ;-) I don't know either very well, so I can't say whether or not they will be right. And at last, you'd want to convert all the "almost-arexx" hacks that exist in various programs, e.g. mozilla -remote and emacs-client, to take advantage of the new facilities. Happy hacking! /Niels