Re: Call for Google Summer of Code 2021 project ideas

[Kashyap Chamarthy <kchamart@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 11:36:23AM -0500, John Snow wrote:
> On 1/14/21 7:29 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:

[...]

> So I see two possible options for "not inventing a language":
> 
> 1. Raw QMP
> 2. The existing qmp-shell syntax, warts and all.
> 
> I don't see a tremendous problem with doing both; but we can start with raw
> QMP. The existing qmp-shell syntax is at least definitely very easy to write
> a new parser for, even if it's kind of ugly and insufficient. I still see
> value in designing a new TUI with the old syntax.
> 
> > The project then aims to build a tool that adds useful features over
> > "socat "READLINE,history=$HOME/.qmp_history,prompt=QMP>"
> > UNIX-CONNECT:/path/to/socket".
> > 
> > If it succeeds, you can still design and implement a "better" language,
> > and let users choose the one they prefer.  Or you could add features to
> > help with typing QMP.
> > 
> > >                                                             I don't
> > > think it's a blocker to have someone work on the TUI and asynchronous
> > > dispatch elements. I think even just keeping our current parsing but
> > > adding some of the features outlined in the proposal would be a big
> > > usability win.
> > 
> > I don't feel this particular itch, but I'm certainly not objecting to
> > anyone scratching.
> > 
> 
> It's something I'd like to see so that I can walk non-QEMU devs through
> interacting with QEMU at a low level for the purposes of debugging,
> reproducing problems, prototyping features, etc.
>
> I use qmp-shell all the time for debugging things myself, I find it easier
> to use than copy-pasting things directly into socat. I wouldn't mind the
> shell getting a little smarter to help me out -- the ability to see async
> events and reconnect on disconnect would already be a massive improvement to
> *my* quality of life.

As an infrequent user of `qmp-shell`, the async events stuff is really
beneficial to me too.  And, I'm happy to play the test guinea pig to
give the patchs a spin.  (I'm somewhat behind on the goings-on in this
area, very slowly catching up.)

> So much so that I spent a lot of time in December to write an async qmp
> library O:-)

Nice, I recall that you planned to use the 'asyncio' primitives from
Python 3.6.

-- 
/kashyap