Applications Messaging Standard

[Tony Linde]

 > 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

Maybe that should be an indication that you're not supposed to put stuff there :)

T.

John Taylor wrote:
> 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
>>
>