[Pythonmac-SIG] appscript terminology caching

[has]

Hi all,

First, a quick update: just posted appscript 0.7.1, which fixes a 
couple minor bugs:

http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/appscript.html

I've also added a dump() function to appscript.terminology which 
parses and stores an application's terminology as a Python module. 
This will be used by the terminology caching system I'm planning for 
0.8.0, something that's required for remote application scripting [1] 
and should also allow users to reduce the time it takes to create new 
'app' objects by caching terminology data in advance.

...

Now to business: I'm looking for suggestions on how best to implement 
this caching system. I've no clear idea on how to proceed with it, so 
am throwing the thing open to discussion.


Notes:

- Ideally the cache would operate constantly and transparently, 
automatically caching an application's terminology the first time 
it's used, and loading cached terminologies from disk by application 
name and version number. A fully automated cache may not be 
practical, however, in which case the user would need to manually 
trigger the caching process and/or explicitly instruct appscript when 
to load a cached terminology.

- Terminology modules may be generated on the machine where the 
application resides and copied onto the machines that will remotely 
control that application.

- The less user scripts are tied to a specific machine, the better. 
If the user has to add machine-specific code to their script to load 
terminology for a remote application (e.g. the terminology module's 
name), that may be acceptable as such scripts are already less than 
100% portable due to the presence of network-specific eppc addresses. 
Breaking portability would not be acceptable in scripts that use 
cached terminologies simply to improve startup time when scripting 
local apps, however - such scripts should work regardless of whether 
terminology comes from a cache or direct from the application.

- Any other way it could be done better? e.g. Run a 'terminology 
server' daemon on each machine that supplies appscript with all its 
terminology needs? Such daemons could maintain terminology caches for 
local applications, and serve terminology data across networks upon 
demand so that remote clients don't need to maintain their own 
terminology caches for remote apps. Can't hurt to toss around ideas 
at this point.

- Usability and reliability are essential, and portability would be a 
big advantage.

- Also, some other poor sap may have to maintain the appscript code 
some day, so KISS as much as possible.

- Last thing I want is a clumsy Glue-style system.

- Remote scripting support is already implemented in aem for those 
that want to check it out.


Questions:

1. Is there a universal and foolproof way to get an application's 
version number? Particularly when that application is running 
remotely?

2. If not, how else could an application be uniquely identified? URL 
or full path are options, though paths may change, applications may 
be updated in-situ, copies of the same application may exist in 
multiple locations (e.g. if InDesign 3.0.1 is on a dozen networked 
machines, it'd be better to have a single terminology module that 
works with all of them than have a dozen identical modules, each one 
tied to a different location), and multiple versions of the same app 
may exist on a single machine.

3. How and where should terminology modules be stored?

4. How should terminology modules be [uniquely] named when created? 
How should they be located and loaded for use? Can this be done by 
filename/directory structure alone, or would it need a central index 
to locate modules by application name, version,etc?

5. If a fully automated cache isn't possible, what would need to be 
done manually and how?

6. What all could go wrong?



Please post your thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, etc. This is the 
second-to-last major task I'm facing (the last is writing full 
documentation), so the sooner it's solved the sooner I can get on 
with kicking the damn thing out the door at last. :)

Many thanks,

has

--

[1]  OSAGetAppTerminology doesn't work across networks, so a remote 
app's terminology needs to be sourced locally.
-- 
http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/