OK... let's consider it this way then...
I am strongly in favor of separating the backend ( epan + dissectors )
into a standalone shared library ( dll in windows ) so that the
functionality can be used independent of the ethereal applications.
At that point anyone can do what ever they would like with that backend.
I would also love to see the functionality of the ethereal application
abstracted away in a reasonable way from the gui code, so that we can
'bind' the application to multiple interface types (
gtk/qt/curses/osX/win32) in a clean way that does not lead to having to
replicate a new feature or functionality in many many places.
We have people doing development on ethereal on a host of different
platforms write now. It all works. In fact it almost all works in
the same way. What I am concerned about with highly platform dependent
guis on top of ethereal is that the way ethereal currently builds its
UI, if I were to implement a new feature in the interface I would have
no reasonable way to port this feature over, because I don't use all
platforms. By contrast, with portable UIs, I can be reasonably certain
that the change I make to the UI to implement a new feature on
my x86 linux box will produce the desired effect on an HPUX box, a
Solaris box, a *BSD box, and even on Windows. That is my major problem
with non-portable interfaces with the current state of how we construct
our gui, they dramatically constrain development.
If you are really serious about treading down the road towards platform
dependent guis, might I suggest contributing to pulling epan /dissectors
into a separate free standing system, as that is the first step towards
sanely acheiving what you desire.
Ed
On Mon, 2002-03-04 at 19:27, Mike Frisch wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 07:21:31PM -0500, Ed Warnicke wrote:
> > I have no problem with there being multiple guis available for ethereal
> > so long as they are cross platform.
>
> Nothing like a narrow-mind to stifle further development...
>
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