[Clam-devel] Designing Network Composition

[Pau Arumí Albó]

Hi,

I wanted to share same ideas about network scalability design and ask
for feedback. 
Having thought about it I think it will involve very large changes in
the Network. Besides discussing design in the mailing list it would be
worth to meet at irc, ideally Natanael, David and me. I'll try to be
available during this week. Just ping me.

Let's start with a rough proposal. Imagine this scenario of two very
simple networks composed like this in NE:

  parent network:

              +-------- sub net ----------+ 
    src --->  |  src --> filter1r--> sink | --->  filter2  ---> sink  
              +---------------------------+


My proposed solution is to maintain two representations or views:

1. Hierarchic Network Representation : the one that the user edits in
NE, and gets saved in XML:


        parent:   src --> sub net --> filter2 --> sink
        
        sub net:  src --> filter1 --> sink


2. Flat Network Representation : the one scheduled by the FlowControl
class

        src --> filter1 --> filter2 --> sink
        
2 would not be directly edited (by the Network api), only 1 would be.
And all changes in 1 would be synchronized to 2.

Note that I'm taking an approach of avoiding "proxy" objects that
delegates connections by themselves (like the PortPublisher in compiled
Composites). My experience with the Publisher solution is very bad (can
expand on it later).
I think that having a layer (in the Network class) that manages
connections to composites (Networks) is a much simpler approach.

Of course this have a great impact on how the NetworkClass stores its
components. But I think we should discuss the general approach before
the implementation.

Now get the critics and feedback in!

Pau