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Project News: RASTA
2003.05.06: RASTA
RASTA is now hosted on oss.oracle.com.
From the README:
This is RASTA, a library and utilities for template driven tasks.
What does that mean? Take a set of tasks, actions, things to do, what
have you, and consider what is required to perform one of them. A user
must first select the specific task they are interested in. Then the
user may have to answer some questions. Finally, the task can be
executed. A simple example would be "Adding a User to the System".
The user must select this task from the list of tasks, answer the
questions "What is the user name?", "What is the user's group", etc, and
then set the task in motion.
The majority of tasks of any sort fall into this pattern. Whether
managing users, providing a simple way to access information, or simply
allowing a user to use certain resources, the format is similar.
The normal way of handing this is to create a program that takes a
specific task or set of tasks and build a custom application to handle
that task set. This involves writing and maintaining each separate
application This means separate debugging, divergent interfaces, and
lots and lots of bit rot.
RASTA starts from the basic assumption that these tasks follow the above
format. It defines a description file that allows the tasks, the
input they need, and the ability to choose the right task into a
program independent format. The RASTA library knows how to read that
format, and the various front ends know how to interact with the user.
This creates two advantages. First, the user using a command-line
interface can interact with the exact same task setup that the user
using a graphical interface can, and so on for each front end. The
actual task description is shared. Second, no interface programming is
required for a person wishing to design a set of tasks. Provide a
description, and a consistent, accurate view of the task is displayed
to the user via the front end of their choice.
This package contains the base librasta library as well as three
front ends and a set of tools.
The librasta/ directory contains the source for the library. It
provides a complete interface to the description files exported via
the rasta.h header.
The clrasta/ directory contains a very simple command-line front end.
It provides all the functionality in a minimum of complexity.
The gtkrasta/ directory contains a GTK+ front end. It provides a
friendlier interface to the non-command-line oriented.
The cgirasta/ directory contains the start of a CGI front end. This
will allow an HTTP interface to description files. This, of course,
would require security conscious usage. It is currently not complete.
The tools/ subdirectory contains various tools for managing description
files. The rastaadd and rastadel tools are complete. They allow
dynamic addition and subtraction of tasks from an existing description
file. Imagine a description that contains tasks for network management.
Do you provide tasks for managing SAMBA? How do you know SAMBA is
installed? Instead of guessing, the SAMBA package can provide the
description of SAMBA related tasks and use rastaadd to add this snippet
to the existing description file. The tools/ subdirectory also contains
a prototype for rastaedit, a tool to create description files
graphically. rastaedit is not yet functional.
The documentation/ directory contains various documentation, including
the RASTA white paper and the description file tutorial/reference. The
Documentation on writing a front end is not yet written.
The examples/ directory contains some example description files.
The RASTA team.
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