Re: Confusion over the definition of 'bool' in rdi-share/host.h

[Grant Edwards <grante at visi dot com>]

On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 09:36:02PM -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
> 
> Speaking seriously, ADP is still in use even if it is a lame
> protocol, so no it's not going to get dropped.  The RDI code is
> however a completely steamy pile, and if I had to do it all over
> again, I would rather have spent three weeks of 16-hour days
> implementing the protocol from scratch, rather than taking
> the same amount of time stretched out over months trying to
> get it to work right on every host.

Yup.  I've spent god-knows how many hours fussing with the code
that parses device names because it keeps refusing to recognize
serial ports on my machine.  Apparently that bit of code was
some sort of failed AI experiment.  You'd think that if I claim
I've got a serial port called /dev/ttySI15, then it would just
go ahead and open it!  But noooo, the RDI code thinks it has a
priori knowledge about what serial ports I have and what they
are called.

> The ADP protocol is more complicated than the standard remote
> protocol,

That's the understatement of the week!  :)

ADP has more unused features than anything I've seen in a
_long_ time.  It looks more like a PhD project than something
somebody actually expected to work with.

> and if you stick to what actually works rather than what ARM
> fantasized about but never implemented, it's not really that
> hairy.  Another case where I chickened out rather than doing
> the Right Thing.

It happens to all of us...

-- 
Grant Edwards
grante@visi.com