Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!oxtrap!sendai!rich
From: rich@sendai.sendai.ann-arbor.mi.us (K. Richard Magill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
Subject: ISIS suggestions
Message-ID: 
Date: 2 Oct 89 23:26:20 GMT
Sender: rich@sendai.UUCP
Reply-To: rich@sendai.ann-arbor.mi.us
Organization: Digital Works, Ltd. - Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 37

I haven't printed the most recent manual and haven't even tried to
read the TeX source so keep that in mind when reading these.  Things
that fall into the catagory of clear enhancements I'll skip as it
looks like ken has a list of those already... rpc schema parser,
faster isis overall, protos at the kernel level, etc.

* you might consider making the ISIS manual texinfo.  I'm not *sure*
  it's a good idea but you might think about it.

* We need some kind of performance discussion.  I'd be happy to see a
  "what is" column as well as a "soon" column, but I'd really like to
  have some idea.  I realize it will be highly application dependant,
  (ie, traffic dependant), but even point to point, with and without
  nullreplies, how many udp packets in a cbcast? etc.

* Makefiles need better parameterization.  Specifically, I want to be
  able to change CC, CFLAGS, LD, LOADLIBES, BINDIR (default
  /usr/spool/isis/bin is a poor choice), ISISHOME (your default is
  /usr/spool/isis), LIBDIR (eg, /usr/local/lib with better names for
  lib[12].a mlib.a, HEADERDIR (eg, /usr/include/isis for all headers),
  MANDIR (eg, /usr/local/man), etc. with precisely one line.  I don't
  really care whether I have to change it in the makefile, a header
  file, or command line but changing it in several makefiles seems
  redundant.

* lib[12].a and mlib.a are poor choices.  Makes them difficult to
  install in a global place like /usr/local/lib.

* would prefer that all headers were in  and were
  "install"'d there by the install makefile target.  (also, would need
  to change the references in the manual.)

* Makefiles force recompilation too frequently.  That is, "touch
  header" sort of defeats the purpose make in the first place dunnit?

* would like to see "make clean".