Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Is it time to make Wireshark a native Mac OS X application?

[Joerg Mayer <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 01:37:52PM -0600, Stephen Fisher wrote:
> > One thing I'd like to see is just a single executable that loads the
> > approproate gui plugin instead of the other way round (gui loading  
> > libwireshark
> > as a library). An example application that does something like that  
> > was
> > centericq and probably its successor centerim (http:// 
> > www.centerim.org).
> 
> Interesting idea.  Could you elaborate on the advantages of doing  
> that?  I glanced at CeterIM's web page, but it wasn't readily apparent  
> what the advantages are.

I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote the lines above, omitting the
reasons.

- A single binary will mean no more code dupclication between tshark,
  gtk and maybe rawshark (and optionally additional guis) as far as
  commandline handling etc is concerned.
- Running wireshark on a non-gui machine would mean: gui plugin fails
  to load, so (potential ncurses or) tshark plugin could be loaded.
- If we have multiple guis, we have the infrastructure for each feature
  in the core wireshark code, just the representation is missing.
- With the gui being loaded as a module, it could probably be written
  in a different language e.g. c++, objective-c without too much effort.
- Packaging would be easier, as the gui-toolkit specific part could
  be packaged separately for each one.
- Only the core executable would need linking against all the wireshark
  libs, and only the guil module would need linking against the gui libs.

Ciao
 Joerg
-- 
Joerg Mayer                                           <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx>
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that
works. Some say that should read Microsoft instead of technology.