Version 16 of the 'Freiburg' project

Updated 2004-08-21 10:49:04

the 'Freiburg' project is an replacement for shared libraries on Unix, Windows and Mac OS X ...

goals

  • convert a shared library into an module
  • every module uses its own object-space (e.g., it is an execuatble)
  • an application is a collection of modules
  • the modules communicate with a data-bus
  • the data-bus is implemented as a shared/static library
  • the module can reside local or remote
  • if remote the module is started by the inetd server and using tcp sockets
  • if local the module is started by the application starter and using uds sockets
  • the module can be created with any programming language as long the the language is able to link again the data-bus
  • the module is independent of the application interface (e.g., no dynamic linking)
  • once a module was created it can be used with any programming language

usability study 1

I maintain an application based on REMEDY-Ars running a workflow application. The application is running on a SUN server using a local SYBASE database. To monitor the server I wrote an ARS module to check the health status of ARS and the workflow application. The module was developed on SUN Solaris using a gcc compiler and a non free REMEDY-Ars api. To monitor the server I'm using moods as front-end and the module as data provider. The moods application is using a graphic and a text based output devices. The quality of information provided combined with the easiness of using moods created a killer application with a strong request for additional installations. To minimize the installation requirements and maximize the support quality I decided to run the module on a ULTRA SPARC 10 and only ship a generic moods application for different kind of UNIX and WINDOWS environments. With using the module technology I do not need to port the data provider to different environments and was able to support environments with no api support by the REMEDY-Ars supplier.

RHS It sounds like an implementation of a Service Oriented Architecture. While each module can provide functionality, they're not libraries per se, so much as services that other modules or programs can then use.

the 'Freiburg' project and the 'command line'

the traditional unix command line was developed to create complex filters based on simple tools:

 tool1 | tool2 | tool3

   1;   how it works

a tool is nothing more than a module with specific capabilities to manipulate an input stream. The collection of tools combined with pipes is an application. The communication between the tools based on strings with no additional format information. The problem is to implement for every tool a parser to split the input stream into useable data blocks.

   2;   evolution step one

instead using a string based data stream you can use a structured string based data stream (e.g. xml is an example). This make it easy to parse the data stream and add additional capability to handle complex data types (e.g. float, integer ...)

   3;   evolution step two

instead of using one direction communication you can use sockets to allow answers send back to the parent

       |-tool2
 tool1-|
       |-tool3-|-tool4
               |-tool5

more information will be available