RE: record & replay of probe activity

[Steven Clark]

Rick suggested:  don't muck with VarProbe's behavior too much, for
example, don't make it write the changes you make to a log file.  There
are too many different ways people may need to use such a capability.

How about we add a hook to VarProbe that allows you to provide a single
global function to be called every time VarProbe successfully changes a
variable's value?  And, we provide an example function that can be so
used, that writes the changes in the standard format on a file you
provide.  If you really want to do it right, rather than a global
function to be called, you provide an object and a selector, and instead
of just one you allow a list of them.  But those are implementation
details.  :-)  

Sven commented:  don't narrow yourself just to record/playback variable
settings, also include method invocations.

This is a great idea in my opinion.  By the same token, in order to
retain usefulness in simple situations, don't throw out the ability to
record variable value changes.  Now we have to come up with a good
design that will work for VarProbe when it invokes setMyVar: methods
instead of directly setting a variable and at the same time does the
right thing if you're using the VarProbe hook for something other than
recording for playback.

Sven also mentioned the issue of scheduling message sends to objects not
yet created, and Rick suggested giving objects unique IDs.  I agree
that's the only reasonable thing I can think of.  It also solves the
problem of how to record the targets of message sends as well as the
targets of variable changes.  If it were up to me I would throw a unique
identifier capability into Swarm, as an option.

Steven J. Clark       address@hidden       313-769-4396
Center for Electronic Commerce, Industrial Technology Institute
Box 1485, Ann Arbor, MI  48106



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