[PROJECT IDEA] Machine Interface for Poke

[Konstantinos Chasialis]

Currently, GNU Poke only accepts commands through command line. It would be
better to provide it with a machine interface so it can interact with
other programs (GUIs, testers, etc) in an efficient way.


PROJECT

The main goal of this project is to provide clients with a more convenient
way to use Poke.
By achieving this goal, I believe that more and more people will start
using Poke either by interaction with other programs or by its own.

In order to build this machine interface, there are some requirements to
be followed.

1) Build a communication protocol for MI based on JSON. This protocol will
communicate with Poke through requests, responses and events.

2) By using this interface the user should be able to execute the same
commands with the command line version.

3) There is of course a need to transfer large amounts of data in an
efficient way, so attention should definitely be paid on this part.
4) Poke should be able to communicate with our MI both locally and through
networking.

5) Our MI shall be tested and documented thoroughly.


PROJECT TIMELINE

Before April 27, 2020

Become more familiar with GNU Poke, maybe by applying some patches in
order to completely understand its functionality.

Thoroughly discuss about this project idea with my mentor, so its clear to
both of us what we want to achieve.


Before May 18, 2020

During this period I will remain in constant touch with my mentor and the
GNU Poke community. Of course, this implies staying highly active on IRC
and on Mailing Lists in order to discuss and finalize on our plan about
this project.


May 18 - June 15-19, 2020

During this period my main goal is to build the communication protocol and
provide efficient ways for MI to communicate, transfer and receive data
from Poke.


June 19 - July 13-17, 2020

After the first evaluation, I will take into consideration the comments
and observations that my mentor will make in order to further improve.

We will add more services on our MI, services that we have discussed
before, such us executing arbitrary Poke code.


July 17 - August 17-24

We should provide a large test suite in order to be sure that our
application works as intended and fix possible bugs.

Also, the protocol shall be thoroughly documented in the manual.