Hey all,
It has already come up before on the list, but I would like to address
it again; splitting up Ethereal.
With splitting up I mean dividing Ethereal in separate libraries and
modules/plugins. And not just in a GUI and non GUI part but also things
like the capturing/capture file reading , dissecting and other parts.
The reason is that the separate Ethereal parts can be used in more
situations than just a Network analyzing tool. For example when the GUI
are made into a separate widget library, they could be used in other
programs too that need to show a protocol tree or hexdump. Or when the
capturing part is split up it would be easier to make specialized
monitoring tools that for example only monitor one protocol and display
it in a way that is not useful for other protocols. Also the well
defined interfaces between the libraries and modules would make it
possible to have different release schedules for those "sub-projects",
and even different developers with different CVS rights.
There was already shown some interest in making Ethereal more modular,
but I think nobody really knows how to start. Especially the
organizational side of it. Would it be an idea to split off a Ethereal 2
branch, and start modularization there. Then the current source tree can
work its way to 1.0 ? Any other ideas on such a major restructuring of
Ethereal ?
- Erwin
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Erwin Rol Software Engineering - http://www.erwinrol.com/
