Re: gEDA-dev: Last call for input on SOW for Linux Fund....

[al davis <ad151-at-NOSPAMfreeelectron_dot_net>]

On Monday 01 December 2008, Peter TB Brett wrote:
> If any source can be round-tripped to the interchange format
> and back, the interchange format must necessarily be a
> superset of all of the requirements of any of the sources'
> formats.
>
> This being the case, why not just adopt the interchange
> format as the native format for each of the tools? Having to
> implement perfect translators is *harder* than switching to a
> new file format, IMHO.

Ideally that would be the goal.

In practice, all those other formats are things we are stuck 
with.

Also, there will be simple tools that don't want to deal with 
the whole thing.  It is probably easy for them to use a subset, 
so in a sense they would just be using the interchange format.  
In this case, the translation in would be a simple copy, and 
the translation out would be to strip off the extra stuff.

Of course, "just adopt the interchange format" implies a library 
would be available for anyone to use.  This is a good thing, 
and would be the core of the translator system.

Also, there needs to be limits.  That is why I suggested the 
limit:  Formats that consist of lists of objects, encapsulated 
in modules, each object has attributes and connections.  That 
limit will keep the interchange format simple.



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