RE: Look ma, no hub?

["Ian Lowe" <ianlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I agree up to a point but embedded device owners don't get confused,
why
should anyone else?  Besides, it's trivial > to write a test that would
confirm one way or another, to end anyone's confusion.

Embedded devices do not, as a rule, run sofwtare from more than one person
-
linux PCs do, and the confusion arises where a technically more advanced
solution is not widely known (or rather, not widely publicised), but
implemented without considering what other developers may or may not try to
do.

AIUI, using the

The hub approach provides a certain degree of "sandboxing" in
that a well
behaved xPL app will not prevent other xPL apps from also working.

> Personally, I'm using one today, but I'm not sure why I should be
*required* to if it actually adds nothing but a
> potential point of failure.

This isn't new and unexplored territory, I'm afraid - the windows .NET
library had a builtin hub using a Mutex added for the same sorts of reasons
you suggest: it's technically superior, and the operating system can
support
it.

In practice however, this was discussed and removed as it was becoming
clear
that this implementation broke the code written by other people which had
served perfectly well up until this point.

Changing to precisely the same method in Linux for the sake of it now
smacks
of *exactly* the same mistake all over again.

> To be honest, I was hoping someone was going to come back and say why
having a hub added something (other than
> commonality across platforms that I'd say we don't truly have anyway)
that
I couldn't live without.

It breaks someone else's code and seems to be a "for the sake of
it" change:
we have been down this path with windows, and then stepped back to this
position - as I say, I don't think we have to make the same mistake fresh
on
each platform to recognise it as a bad thing(tm)

The hub method is a lowest common denominator which works perfectly well,
and tbh, SPOF isn't really a factor where the typical home automation PC
only has 1 NIC, 1 cable connecting to 1 switch, plugged into 1 mains supply
;)

Ian.