[FR-devel] System_commands plugin and Scripting in general

[Hal E. Fulton]

Curt, 

I've been looking at System_commands again
(since I'm *trying* to devote time to FR)
and I like it so far.

I'm thinking I would like to get started 
on the Scripting sub-project, but I am
rather at a loss as to where to begin.

Would you like to give me a suggestion 
or even an assignment?

One goal: I'd like to expose an API that
will allow the user to write a "quick and 
dirty" script and attach it to a list of
scripts. (Probably in a common directory,
optionally attached as a menu item, and
later on optionally with an icon.)

The Q&D script would not be true OO, but 
would be the equivalent of a Ruby script
written at the toplevel. I'm guessing I'd
evaluate it in the context of some object
so that it could get easy access to system
info (perhaps storing common slots in instance
vars rather than forcing the user to access
the databus).

For more advanced scripting the user would 
follow a model or template and subclass 
Command or whatever. He would define undo
and redo methods and so on.

A couple of other thoughts:

1. Shouldn't the "refactoring" tools be 
implemented through the scripting interface?
That seems right to me.

2. Here's an annoying thought. In a few years,
FreeRIDE is popular. People start to share 
scripts with each other. This opens the door
to such a thing as a FreeRIDE virus or trojan.
Should we give thought to this?

Hal