Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Re: Ethereal Gripe

["Mark H. Wood" <mwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

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On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Ronnie Sahlberg wrote:
[snip]
> The difficult part is those parts that can not be described in a generic
> packet/interface description language  such
> as how and what state should be maintained between packets.   How packets
> relate to eachother.
> What information should go in COL_INFO.

Maybe the problem should be broken down into multiple languages.  One to
describe packets, so that one can refer to the objects of interest in the
packet-stream.  Another to describe the relationships among packets.
Another, Ethereal-specific, to map objects and relationships onto the user
interface.

"Ewww, I have to learn *three* languages?  I wasn't sure I wanted *one*."
Well, would you rather have PL/I, or FORTRAN and COBOL?  (Actually I like
PL/I, but that's another story....)

Come to think of it, COBOL might be worthy of study here, not because it
fits the problem domain(s) but because it's an example of a coherent
language that's composed of several sublanguages which are aimed at
different aspects of the overall problem.  (I'm thinking of the various
DIVISIONs:  environment, data, procedure, etc.)  A framework within which
there are separate sublanguages to describe the static, dynamic, and
presentational aspects of protocols might be a good place to end up.

- -- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood@xxxxxxxxx
MS Windows *is* user-friendly, but only for certain values of "user".
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