Applications Messaging Standard

[John Taylor]

Hi Mike - your reply didn't go to the apps list (I don't think), so  
the stuff below might be out of context.

On 15 Feb 2007, at 18:40, Tony Linde wrote:

> > I think even the suggestion of using the Windows registry violates
> > the first comment above (can somebody point me to a Fortran
> > interface to the registry?).   As has been pointed out before, the
> > current .plastic file (and the suggested .ivoamsg file) is not the
> > reason for your demo problems and so long as apps play nice with
> > the host system, the use of dot files is not ground-breaking  
> technology.
> > Likewise, using the java properties is nice for java, but....
>
> I wasn't suggesting that we use the windows registry - I said that  
> the registry is the obvious solution in windows but that since  
> linux does not have an equivalent facility (don't know about macs),  
> the common file seems to be the lowest common denominator.
>
> One point since we're mentioning languages: do other languages have  
> the concept of a 'home' directory? We know that it'll work for java  
> and .net languages, but do python, perl etc have commands to get  
> the 'home' directory which will return the same directory as java  
> does?

Python and perl certainly do.  As far as I can tell C# appears not to  
- I had to use the the API that gave me the location of the Desktop,  
and then append "/.." which is not really satisfactory.  On C++ I  
seem to remember that I had to get the environment variable "HOME",  
but this often wasn't set on Windows.  Perhaps Marco can say how it's  
done properly in C++.  It also looks like it can be done in Ruby.

>
> > the first comment above (can somebody point me to a Fortran
> > interface to the registry?).   As has been pointed out before, the
>
> If there is a windows Fortran compiler then it'll have access to  
> the win32 libraries which make registry access relatively simple.
>
> T.
>
> Mike Fitzpatrick wrote:
>> On 2/15/07, Tony Linde <Tony.Linde at leicester.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> Hi John,
>>>
>>>  > whatever solution we choose should be platform and
>>>  > language neutral.
>>>
>>> agreed.
>>>
>>>  > Unfortunately, there's no way
>>>  > for Python, Perl and everyone else to use it.
>>>
>>> I'd be surprised if there weren't libraries for getting the windows
>>> registry info - not sure what java does so don't know about that.
>> I think even the suggestion of using the Windows registry violates
>> the first comment above (can somebody point me to a Fortran
>> interface to the registry?).   As has been pointed out before, the
>> current .plastic file (and the suggested .ivoamsg file) is not the
>> reason for your demo problems and so long as apps play nice with
>> the host system, the use of dot files is not ground-breaking  
>> technology.
>> Likewise, using the java properties is nice for java, but....
>> I also think we're agreed that a well-known file, a separate name  
>> server, a
>> "hub" or somesuch is needed and is an implementation detail.  For  
>> this
>> exercise we should concentrate on what information needs to be  
>> written
>> to establish the connection and pass messages.  Does the XPA name
>> server do something the PLASTIC hub doesn't?  If so, do we need it  
>> and
>> what does that look like in our new protocol (i.e. a dedicated  
>> administrative
>> message or some generic functionality) ?
>> -Mike
>