[9fans] Octopus, extend tentacles to an distributed gui / app concept?

[9fans] Octopus, extend tentacles to an distributed gui / app concept?

[V-CA ! Christoph Paschke]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5871 bytes --]

Today I was driving long time to my working place and I had time to think about realizing projects at Plan 9 / Octopus base.
First I realize practically, that I will have more than one octopus PC the same as I have more than one Mac-Server today.
There are different contexts of usage and you will not combine that.

If you think this way, you also think what you will say one octopus node to share with the other one and opposite. So, the inter-octopus communication.

But more important I thought about the applications to realize. I concentrate to the practical realisation of my first programs and how I wood do that in such an distributed environment. And I got the idea of a distributed app that are integrated into a distributed GUI. It means, the root GUI I keep at the octopus PC, but from that I connect to the places where he can catch the distributed GUI and apps (DIS VM) to bind them dynamically into the root GUI reside at my octopus PC.

Example: I need modules from others who are experts for example for calculating modules like statics of building things, cutting optimizers, tour optimizers, law requests etc. All such modules are made from experts in THEIR FIELD but not from us. Such people like me offer a client / customer the basic frame and such individual mostly database driven adaptions he wants to see. So, we need catch over to such experts if we need THEIR EXPERT KNOWLEDGE and in practice it means: Catch out to THEIR DISTRIBUTED APPS to run them inside our framework. And such distributed app modell can be realized with Plan 9 very good. But need have such EASY GUI-DEFINITION FILES FOR THAT experts that THEY offer for their distributed app to get good integrated into the root GUI. This is quite easy to realize in such an distributed invironment. They only need know how to define the menu and mask files and the GUI-Interpreter at the octopus PC will catch it and bind it into the root-GUI.

The basics of such distributed GUI integration will be just the menu point that is defined in a .mnu file together with the dis app he offers. But this could be more if the expert want better integrate their expert question and result package into the existing central app of the client. Sure, I also speak about money if such expert offers his KNOW-HOW in such kind. So, the expert can define with the client the right to catch that "distributed app connection". For example, he says: I give you that expert knowledge (that dis app link) for 5 Euro / month. Than the client can say: Yes I need this, but could you just define the mnu and msk files according to "dis gui" that I can integrate your "dis app" into my basic application frame? He will do so, if he can earn money with this connection each month.

So, it's kind of an app modell like the others now do, but it's a distributed app that get integrated in the central application. And I think this kind of app is not typical but very realistic in practice. For example: How much companies you can remember about such expert programs, normaly quite expensive sold at CD and often some updates coming in by CD or by an update file. Now I recognize that lots of such expert system deliverers move over from CD or online Update to a webbased application. But this webbased application has
a) a bad performance, especially if you not have a good internet line
b) a bad and inefficient kind of GUI handling, because such webform are not good for an efficient usage
c) nearly nothing is integrated, it is an island solution that they offer and the results are in most cases just PDF printouts or Excel lists or some data that you need copy and paste over in your real application etc. But in real you would expect such systems much more COOPERATE WITH YOU. Maybe you start with complicated discussions with the both software companies how they can understand eachother, maybe you find some standard interface defintion like EDI what you think maybe this will work but you need half a year to get such things together and this is not worth the act.

A dis gui and dis apps would solve that problem in a perfect way as I think. But they will run at the octopus pc. It means, this octopus will spread his tentacles not only to the terminals but also to the dis apps anywhere he got the rigth to catch the expert apps for his needs.

This combined octopus with some arms for the user touch (Terminals) and some others for the foreign touch (dis apps), seams to me a realistic usage szenario. We are a small community and I believe we cannot afford to develop 100th of variants and modules to integrate them into a central static application and finish. If we have an distributed model in this OS, we should use it and in my understanding it means a practical sharing modell. Reach out in many directions to catch the resources you need. Do contracts with such deliverers of dis app resources that you need for your work and tell the dis app developer that he should integrate it in a dis gui definition that you can bind it DYNAMICALLY into your frame.

I have an idea HOW to realize this dis gui and I mean at a base that is not such a super-bomber that the GUI is 100 times bigger than whole Plan 9. I believe this gui need be efficient in old unerstanding and I will try to realize it in this old way of memory layers and interpreter way and not in the new extreme object oriented ressource eating way of modern gui systems. If someone prefer such monstersystems, he have enough other operating systems he can go to. There he will find 1000 of ONLY LOCAL applications and libraries with monster ressource defintions. Or he moves over to a webapplication that is not so local but inefficient, mostly also nothing efficient integrated with others.

What you think about such idea of a dis gui and app model? Wouldn't it be the exact definition of a distribution os?

[-- Attachment #2.1: Type: text/html, Size: 6318 bytes --]