Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] 0.10.8 soon?( Mate)

[LEGO <luis.ontanon@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I'm preety much sure that checking in the "minimal patch"  to
packet-frame.c wouldn't cause any disfunction as far as the plugin is
not there. On the other hand checking it in would allow to give out
the plugin to several people that could help to get MATE out of its
prototype phase.

I perfectly agree with Ulf that MATE is still a prototype and far from
"production quality" and that there's a lot of work to do to make it
into a "product". It will certainly be little more than a prototype
for a while, but something usable might come out in the next few
weeks. I know some power-users/testers that if given a .dll instead of
source code would be able to give me precious feedback and contribute
example configurations and protocol usage definitions for the MATE's
library.

Luis

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:53:15 +0100, Anders Broman (AL/EAB)
<anders.broman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
> What we are talking about is checking in this minimal patch:
> Index: epan/dissectors/packet-frame.c
> ===================================================================
> --- epan/dissectors/packet-frame.c      (revision 12544)
> +++ epan/dissectors/packet-frame.c      (working copy)
> @@ -57,6 +57,7 @@
> 
>  static dissector_handle_t data_handle;
>  static dissector_handle_t docsis_handle;
> +static dissector_handle_t mate_handle = NULL;
> 
>  /* Preferences */
>  static gboolean show_file_off = FALSE;
> @@ -198,6 +199,9 @@
>         ENDTRY;
> 
>         tap_queue_packet(frame_tap, pinfo, NULL);
> +
> +       if (mate_handle) call_dissector(mate_handle,tvb, pinfo, tree);
> +
>  }
> 
>  void
> @@ -339,4 +343,5 @@
>  {
>         data_handle = find_dissector("data");
>         docsis_handle = find_dissector("docsis");
> +       mate_handle = find_dissector("mate");
>  }
> Which would make it possible to add mate as a plugin dll to the 0.10.8 build.
> I think we should consider adding this patch.
> Best regards
> Anders
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ethereal-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ethereal-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Ulf Lamping
> Sent: den 24 november 2004 22:00
> To: LEGO; Ethereal development
> Subject: Re: [Ethereal-dev] 0.10.8 soon?
> 
> LEGO wrote:
> 
> >Hi,
> >
> >I believe than in very few weeks I'll release an almost complete
> >and usable version of MATE. As so, I'd like you to consider whether or
> >not would it be appropriate to apply the very small changes that I've
> >made to packet-frame.c in order to allow mate's to run if the users
> >install the plug-in.
> >
> >Being MATE a plug-in, it can be installed afterwards by those who'd like
> >to try it. If it not installed there would be no impact on stability
> >and the impact
> >on the overall performance of ethereal would be minimal.
> >
> >I think it would be much useful if users could start getting their
> >hands on it. I've being making some changes to mate based on the
> >feedback I've got from this list that I believe make MATE a very
> >useful tool to assist network troubleshooting.
> >
> >
> To my experience, we might better get some *developer hands* on your new
> feature first.
> 
> A good way might be:
> 
> - wait until next release is out and a few addtional days as the release
> might be buggy for various reasons
> - check feature into subversion, so the developers can have a look and
> play a bit
> - there might be some change requests and documentation issues coming up
> which should be cleaned up then
> - the next release will include the changes in a somewhat (more?) stable way
> 
> I would suggest doing it that way, as it's not a good idea to hurry up
> things here (although you may like to see it in the next release, I
> understand).
> 
> If things done too fast, you may:
> 
> - get a lot of user questions because of bugs and bad documentation
> - get a buggy Ethereal release :-(
> 
> That's my experience about "best practice" of adding new features,
> 
> Regards, ULFL
> 
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