[Mono-list] Proposal for an Worldwide Data Introspector API layer for GNU tools.

[James Michael DuPont]

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Here is my proposal : 
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I propose the following API into free software development tools
to be licensed for the orderly, secure, fast, and high tech buzzword
compliant data backbone for a new gnu development environment.

ABSTRACT

The Introspector is a tool chain to extract meta-data about your
programs from the compiler and present it to you for making your job as
a programmer easier.

The software is free software in the spirit of the GNU manifesto and is
revolutionary in the freedoms that it intends on granting to its users.
There are many many licensing and legal issues addressed by this
project, and my guideline for resolving them are to limit the usage of
the tool for non-free software if there is a need to.  The legal and
licensing FAQ will be posted in the next weeks.

This Meta-Data includes all data collected about your software by the
Compiler, the Make system, the Project and Packaging system,
the CVS Logs and the Mailling List.

The Introspector's scope was originally just the GCC C compiler, but
will be expanded to include the extraction of  meta-data from different
compilers and interpreters.

The programs meta-data will be provided as a Perl/C#/(XML/RDF/DAML)/SQL
or plain old C/C++ interface.

We will build tools to allow this meta-data to be processed by various
GUI tools, Graph Layout Tools like VCG, Diagram Editors like DIA, and
Editors like EMACS.

Also Languge bindings like 
compiling (gcc(C, C++, java) | cscc(CSHARP))
scripting (guile|Python|Perl { via inline::* }|Ruby)
reasoning (guile|scheme|lisp|prolog)
repository (GDBM|(POSTGRES|MYSQL)XIndice)
communication (soap|xmlrpc| +  a new development of a REST api)

This meta-data will be stored in a repository and available to tools
that need it via many different interfaces.

I look forward to your comments.

Please come visit my updated webpage at :
 http://introspector.sf.net

You will find an copy of related snippets and news at :
 the blogger : http://gccintrospector.blogspot.com

Best regards,
Mike


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James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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