On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 09:44:19AM +0100, Philip Hazel wrote: > On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Michael Haardt wrote: > > > The specification may be the hardest point, but the actual code does > > not sound too bad. Make "driver = appendfile" the same as "extends > > appendfile", and the configuration stays compatible. Still Exim 4. :-) > > It is still too big an item for me at this time. I am not an OO > programmer, for a start.
I am neither, although I did use Java for a large project in 1997/1998, which was a pleasurable experience. Too bad it is not for system programming. As I said, the hardest work would be to specify the desired behaviour first. I was curious if anybody would call me crazy for suggesting OO instead of textual macros, and surprisingly, nobody did. I am not suggesting to jump and hack Exim right now. I thought some about multiple inheritance for Exim's objects, but have not yet come to a conclusion how exactly it should work to be most useful. As a matter of fact, this is not limited to Exim. Quite some software uses "objects" in configuration files in a similar way Exim does and I do see the same problem as addressed by the multiline patch there, too. If things get too bad, I use m4, because there is no need to reinvent a macro processor for every piece of software. Somehow I feel there must be an OO extension that feels natural is 100% backward compatible. I shall write more about this, if I can come up with a clear concept how things should work and why. I am sick of macros, but don't hold your breath. Michael -- ## List details at http://www.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-dev Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ##
