TaskBrowser usability & data ports

I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
.

First, there is the enter/leave concept. Is anyone using or understanding
this ? Is it feature bloat or handy in some cases ?

Second, the TaskBrowser automatically connects to all data flow ports of the
peer it visits. This has the effect that any not yet connected port is
connected upon a visit and that the component may falsely assume it is
correctly setup within the environment. I would propose to drop this default
behaviour and add a ".connect" taskbrowser 'command' which does this for the
current peer when called.

If you have any other suggestions/questions about this component, drop a note.

Peter
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Peter Soetens -- FMTC --
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TaskBrowser usability & data ports

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:
> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
> .
>
> First, there is the enter/leave concept. Is anyone using or understanding
> this ? Is it feature bloat or handy in some cases ?

I use it very frequently to "unit-test" functionality of individual components.

> Second, the TaskBrowser automatically connects to all data flow ports of the
> peer it visits. This has the effect that any not yet connected port is
> connected upon a visit and that the component may falsely assume it is
> correctly setup within the environment. I would propose to drop this default
> behaviour and add a ".connect" taskbrowser 'command' which does this for the
> current peer when called.

ACK.

Klaas
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TaskBrowser usability & data ports

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:

> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
> .
>
> First, there is the enter/leave concept. Is anyone using or understanding
> this ? Is it feature bloat or handy in some cases ?
>
> Second, the TaskBrowser automatically connects to all data flow ports of the
> peer it visits.

For what it is worth: such an automatic connection is not a _scalable_
feature... Imagine a machine with thousands of peripheral embedded
controllers (these machines exist!) that do almost nothing but that each
have their own component: automatically connecting with all of them over a
network would _not_ be a good idea...

Maybe the automatic or manual connection policies could become configurable?

Herman

TaskBrowser usability & data ports

Quoting Herman Bruyninckx <Herman [dot] Bruyninckx [..] ...>:

> On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:
>
>> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
>> .

TaskBrowser usability & data ports

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:

> Quoting Herman Bruyninckx <Herman [dot] Bruyninckx [..] ...>:
>
>> On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
>>> .
>>>
>>> First, there is the enter/leave concept. Is anyone using or understanding
>>> this ? Is it feature bloat or handy in some cases ?
>>>
>>> Second, the TaskBrowser automatically connects to all data flow ports of
>>> the
>>> peer it visits.
>>
>> For what it is worth: such an automatic connection is not a _scalable_
>> feature... Imagine a machine with thousands of peripheral embedded
>> controllers (these machines exist!) that do almost nothing but that each
>> have their own component: automatically connecting with all of them over a
>> network would _not_ be a good idea...
>>
>> Maybe the automatic or manual connection policies could become
>> configurable?
>
> The TaskBrowser only connects to the data ports of a single component. But
> your example could apply on that case as well, if thousands of ports are
> available and automatic connection does not scale well.
> But in that case, I don't think the TB would be a useful tool anyway.
>
Why not? I could be interested in going through the network and connect to
specific nodes... Or is this "use case" better covered by another RTT
feature?

Herman
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TaskBrowser usability & data ports

Quoting Herman Bruyninckx <Herman [dot] Bruyninckx [..] ...>:

> On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Peter Soetens wrote:
>
>> Quoting Herman Bruyninckx <Herman [dot] Bruyninckx [..] ...>:

Ruben Smits's picture

TaskBrowser usability & data ports

On Friday June 1 2007 15:42:33 Peter Soetens wrote:
> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
> .
>
> First, there is the enter/leave concept. Is anyone using or understanding
> this ? Is it feature bloat or handy in some cases ?

I only use the leave functionality to write values in ReadDataPorts of a
component. Since it cannot be done en the "enter"ed state. I do not use it
anymore to read values from WriteDataPorts, since i have replaced all of them
with Dataports(Read and Write).

> Second, the TaskBrowser automatically connects to all data flow ports of
> the peer it visits. This has the effect that any not yet connected port is
> connected upon a visit and that the component may falsely assume it is
> correctly setup within the environment. I would propose to drop this
> default behaviour and add a ".connect" taskbrowser 'command' which does
> this for the current peer when called.

The automatic connection is easy when debugging your component, in this case
there is only one component, and no connections (besides the ones with the
TaskBrowser).

I don't think this ".connect" command will be very handy. Maybe the
possibility to see which components share a certain dataport is much more
informative and usefull. In the way like:
Component.DataPort.getNamesOfWriters, Component.DataPort.getNamesOfReaders,
Component.DataPort.getConnectedComponents, ...

Ruben

--
Ir. Ruben Smits
Robotics Group, Mechanical Engineering,
KULeuven
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TaskBrowser usability & data ports

Quoting Ruben Smits <Ruben [dot] Smits [..] ...>:

> On Friday June 1 2007 15:42:33 Peter Soetens wrote:
>> I'd like to get your input about the TaskBrowser component
>> .