Future of FAI (fwd)

[Niall Young]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, AUSTIN MURPHY wrote:

> > One thing I'd like to see addressed it the order that the script directory is processed.
> > Currently the scripts are run in the order the classes are defined.
> > How about a scripts/XX.CLASSNAME.source filename format so you could use the XX as a number to control the execution order?
>
> I think the ordering of classes is a conscious decision to tame
> complexity.  Doing something like reordering classes breaks the concept.
> It's all pretty easy.

But is it as intuitive as it could be?  'Hiding' where classes are
defined, how and in what order doesn't exactly make it as easy as
possible for newbies to build a class for themselves.  Just playing
devil's advocate here, you want people to build and use simple, medium
and complex class combinations as easily and quickly as possible.

Defining new classes on the fly is fantastic, but I look at it as a
nifty last resort.  Keep it there, but why not bring all of the
potentially re-usable mechanisms into the foreground where it's obvious.
If there's an alternative way of grouping classes together, maybe as
a group of common classes in an umbrella profile, then if there is an
order to be taken you could define dependencies and otherwise they can
be installed in whatever order happens to occur.  Think of each class
as an object to be built upon into useful combinations, define them
as simply as you can and make them do one thing.  After a while we'll
all have come to similar solutions and maybe the class concept can have
more core features added, consensual solutions to common problems, as
we go.

</2am day-dreaming>

Niall Young                                    Chime Communications Pty Ltd
niall at chime.net.au                            Level 6, 263 Adelaide Terrace
Ph: 08 9213 1330 / 0408 192 797               Perth, Western Australia 6000

     "there's a lot of movement in my trousers at the moment"
                                     -- Dennis Kristofich, Sep 2002