ParaQ:Scripting

Requirements

ParaQ scripting requirements can be found here

Design

ParaQ scripting will be build on top of the server manager (SM) API. Main reasons behind this decision are:

• We need a scripting interface independent of the GUI (accessible through the python client)
• SM is designed to provide such an interface
• SM is already wrapped into Tcl, Python and client/server streams

ParaQ scripts will directly manipulate the SM through it's published API using one or more of the supported scripting languages (Python, Tcl and Java). A python client will be implemented (more on this later). In order to provide a easy-to-use, full featured and backwards compatible scripting language, the following guidelines will be followed:

• Clean separation of GUI/engine functionality. All the functionality to be accessed through the scripting interfaceshould be implemented in SM and accesses through the publish SM API by the GUI.
• Stable SM API. Since the scripting interface will depend on the SM interface, SM API should be stable and backwards compatible as much as possible.
• Clear and easy-to-use API. The SM API should be clear. Although the SM API is verbose due to it's design, simplifications can be made in the scripting language.