[asdf-devel] component-property

[Faré]

>>>: Xach
>>: Faré
>: Xach

>>> I request a slot called "properties" that can hold arbitrary key/value
>>> data.
>>>
>> If it's arbitrary, it's not usable from one system to the other, and
>> thus serves no purpose.
>
> I don't understand this, sorry.
>
> Imagine that there was a community desire to provide, in a system, the
> answer to the question "Where is the best place to go to report bugs for
> this system?"
>
Doesn't require a lot of imagination.
Then we add a new slot for that.

> It is possible, today, to choose a key (or set of keys) for a property
> stored in the system, and for authors who wish to participate to adopt
> the convention, and for some tool to gather this information and provide
> it in a useful way.
>
There's already a perfectly fine feature for free-form metadata
that follows loose conventions impossible to process automatically.
It's called comments.

Contrariwise, class slots are supposed to hold information suitable
for automation following sufficiently agreed-upon protocols.

> I don't see how this is not usable from one system to another.
>
Different names for the same thing, or same name for different things.
Automation is hell if possible at all. A disservice to the community.

> It does not require reader conditionalization, subclassing, or ASDF
> upgrades. It can be expanded and changed without expansions or changes
> to ASDF. It works with past versions of ASDF, present versions of ASDF,
> and until today, I thought it would work in future versions of ASDF.
>
It still requires agreement to an actual specified protocol to be useful,
but it creates the false sense that cooperation is possible without such.
Out of the existing uses of :properties, the only properties that are usable
by more than one system are the albert things. Interestingly, they are
not a protocol allowing for multiple software to cooperate, but only
the internals of a single system, and would be better served by
an albert-system subclass of system.

None of these properties otherwise "works" in any meaningful way
as a convention followed by multiple parties.
Remarkably, automation still requires software to be written,
and does not retroactively happen in old versions of the software.

> I'm not sure why this is an undesirable feature that must be removed
> from ASDF.
>
I don't see any feature being removed.
I see features being added, and a bug being removed
that lures developers into believing they are cooperating with others
when actually they aren't.

—♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root. — Thoreau