Last week, I resumed the work that had been suspended
due to my focus on this year’s Froscon talk (on `io_uring`).
I have reconsidered my previous design ideas and sought to
arrive at a coherent design. Nevertheless, these are preliminary,
exploratory design studies that should be regarded as a basis
for future work rather....
The type-independent data transfer is based on a double-dispatch,
which is implemented as visitor pattern; so the operation must start
from the source parameter's VTable and be ''deflected back'' to the receiver
This completes the base operations required to establish a »Domain« (data type)
Adding more test coverage to demonstrate usage patterns...
...turns out as better to code two distinct low-level operations,
albeit implemented by delegation to a single generic assignment implementation.
The visitor patter thus becomes relocated to the high-level interface,
allowing to assign one opaque parameter to another one
However then the problem is that we know ''our domain'' but not the ''other domain''...
... and thus this forces one direction to pass through a double dispatch
- systematic testing of boundary values for various numeric types
- verify even clamping of an uint-128 when targeting float
- verify signed / unsigned of different rank
- demonstrate the clamping now integrated into `extractAs()`
As an aside, move the `isNeg()` function (safe test for negative numbers)
into util.hpp and fix related bugs with unsigned there.
Signed and unsigned integral types have a partial overlap of definition domains,
yet due to the automatic promotion rules it is impossible to write
a domain clamping function directly, since `std::numeric_limits` returns
the domain boundaries in the given type, and `int(-1) < uint(0)`
evaluates to false, due to int being is promoted to uint.
The attempt to circumvent this problem here relies on a check if the
comparison crosses the zero point, and otherwise relies explicitly
on the promotion to the number with the larger domain.
- we need a generic operation to clamp to the smaller value domain
- furthermore we need a virtual function to apply a type specific limiter
__TODO__: this draft does not handle properly signed vs. unsigned types
...so this is not yet a visitor, rather the building blocks required
to be able to extract values and to assign and conform values
And my intention is to build something akin to a set of conversion rules
...after an extended break where I focused on learning IO_URING,
which is the topic of my upcoming talk at Froscon-2026;
(I built a prototype to read and display video with async IO)
Today ''I have re-read my design notes'' and the analysis seems to hold up well;
furthermore I solved the coding problem how to generate type handlers for a list of types.
While it is unfortunate that I seem to get deeper and deeper into that topic...
- it should be noted that data size matters most (pervasive use expected)
- the design is leaning towards multiple functional closures
- both together suggest to use a classical virtual interface, without much ado
- yet parameters must be copyable values, to allow for evaluation graphs and snapshots
- so this turns out as yet another use case for ''polymorphic values''
- furthermore, fluid usage requires flexible conversions between result values
- given the situation with numeric value types and strings, this implies ''to build a visitor''
🠲 ''putting that work aside for the moment, since I need to focus on my IO_URING research (for FrOSCon 26)''
In the current stage, a design-draft is required that is sufficiently adequate
to be used as code placeholder and to evolve into the full specification eventually.
- we need a single parameter container type with value semantics
- parameters must support a selection of basic value types, with conversions
- the value range can be limited, and a parameter can be associated
with a ''Scale'' (stepped, continuous, logarithmic)
- a parameter can be linked to a functional source
- parameters are (virtually) copyable
Parameters and Automation will certainly play a crucial role eventually.
They will form a network of relationships to cover all further concerns that can not directly be conceptualised as arrangement or processing.
A shift in the setup of the Job-Functor arguments necessitates to introduce a `Parameter` type — ''albeit just as placeholder''
