Re: an outsiders view [2] (resent)

>The Conf Class is awesome! Why isn't this incorporated more into
>the Node
>class? Instead of having setParam and getParam why not have a 
>node
>automagically create its own conf namespace so all nodes have an 
>easy
>place to reference;  a uniform interface. In addition with node 
>creation
>the Conf class could be used to autocreate a tree manager so you 
>could
>crawl the tree and pre and post process nodes in this fashion.

Nathan, Node creation and conf are different holons.
A NodeFactory may create Nodes, but doesn't use conf for that.
Crawling a tree in pre- or postOrder mode, or Depth-or BreadthFirst 
mode (I prefer these terms), should be *outside* Node, indeed. I agree 
totally.

>I also think the Event class is great. I just think its a shame 
>that it
>isn't being used more, Nodes should fire events when entering 
>the
>initialization/process/render steps and fire events that other 
>nodes can
>listen for so they can respond without having to know the 
>parent/child
>relationship. This would make Nodes insanely powerful.

I can' agree more. Though the Event system lacks true Object 
registration at the moment.
Otherwise, IMO, a Node should not know it's parent at all.
A Node may controll it's children, obsoleting the need of it's children to 
give feedback. Well, it's IMO.

>Having Smarty/Templates integrated so closely to a node sucks in 
>my
>option, if you want to output to a template create a template 
>node, or
>have a "/template" namespace in Conf. Render should have 
>settings like
>HTML,SVG,PDF,JPG etc The public interface to a node is way too 
>big.

Most BC people will tend that Smarty is tightly integrated. Let me tell 
you from experience: it is *not*. The Smarty API is copied into the 
Node. Eliminating that copied-API is easy without breaking anything.
The idea of resource-types for Nodes is interesting. Do you have more 
ideas on that, ie. how to realize such, or examples?

>Speaking of NDFs, I hate XML config files, they are great for 
>porting
>configs from one environment to another but to work with by hand 
>is

I do see ndf as a concept, for the moment coded with XML.
I still do use Phing to generate native php arrays.
MyConf has several 'packers'. These support several fileformats,
line ini, txt, php_script(!), sql and on. But the concept remains conf 
and/or ndf. The 'packers' are just convenience.

>painful. I have patched my Binarycloud install so it runs native 
>php
>config files, I find it much easier to deal with. My though with 
>this is
>to create a simple web base interface for handling the 
>editing/creation of
>config files. In this fashion we could then create resources and 
>the
>config manager could automagically manage them and validate that 
>all
>required parameters are filled and valid.

Agree on that. It is a definitive need. Though some will say that it is 
discussed already and before. Herewith ignoring that the need-to-have-
it is existent.

>There is allready an RenderManager but i  am
>not sure you can just add a renderer.

Bas, it would be wonderfull if you may point to RenderManager in some 
more extend. I'm afraight that the term Render is not clear to 
vereybody in tha same way. At least to me, that is.....

> But that might change if you need to hook node up in  a
> different way than a simple tree. Not talking about the sepeartion of
> Node and Rendering.
>I would be more then willing to take on this task or help out.

Nodes form a simple Tree. This Tree can be further parameterized, if 
there are needs. The next step will be a Graph. I think if you go that 
way, the application of Nodes will be bent as well.

Example: Entities in a database could form a graph with data and 
relations. Searching the Graph is an application, like: find me the 
fastest travel connection fromA to B; or: find me the cheapiest supplier 
for this DVD recorder; or such.

IMO: there is a fundamental difference between an Entity and a Node. 
That's why Nodes form a Tree and not a Graph. IMO, that is.

Cheers,
wim niemans

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