Re: Record support and user-defined fields

[Marty Kraimer <mrk@aps.anl.gov>]

On Jul 13, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Benjamin Franksen wrote:

> > Sounds like you agree with that that presenting full blown templates
> > to users is not very nice :-)
>
> No, that is not what I meant to say. Rather the decision of whether or
> not to include templates in C+ interfaces must take their disadvantages
> into account, too. I think there are many situations where presenting a
> template based interface is exactly what is needed.
>
> OTOH, I think we don't need to decide this question here. The developer
> of the (struct based) building block is free to present the interface
> how he/she sees fit. Client code will look the same.


Agreed.

What I am thinking is the following.

When preparing support meant for general use make it as simple and 
understandable as possible for the user even if it means more work for 
the developer. For record support and below, end users will often not 
be C++ experts and may have trouble if too much C++ magic is used.

Some additional comments:

1) We have the wrong title for this message thread. It should be 
something like "record support building blocks"  rather than 
user-defined fields.

2) I suspect that this can be done via the device definitions as they 
appear in the DBD definitions.  The direction=none could be used for 
record support building blocks.
 3) Perhaps the name device is the wrong name? What it is actually 
doing is providing the ability to locate and communicate with code that 
does useful  things for record support. This can mean interfacing to 
hardware but it can also be "building block" for records.

Marty