Gumpy Rework (was Re: Avalon Framework)

["Adam R. B. Jack" <aj...@trysybase.com>]

> it's included from
>
>
http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/avalon/buildsystem/gump-integration/project/avalon.xml
>
> which is the file gump 'eats'.

Thanks Leo/Stefan, in hindsight you have to be asking yourself why I'm
asking such a basic question. I guess I couldn't see the wood for the trees.
I'm just finishing off re-work of Gumpy, to make it objectified. It is the
same code, but a major re-working.

I guess I finally decided not to let the work of those who came before me
(and their clearly superior Python-knowledge ) intimidate me into meek
imitation. Theirs was a prototype, I want a mature version. I've been
wanting to do this re-work for weeks/months, and as Gumpy got closer and
closer to working the less and less I could tolerate the rats nest of uglies
in the code & these random crashes that would occur. I want Gumpy extensible
and maintainable by others, as and when, so I launched into this. It was
meant to take a couple of days, it has taken a lot longer, but I feel it was
worth it.

The objectives of this re-work are:

1) Objectification, no more a maze of 7 parameter objectless functions
objectless calling functions.
2) Unit Tests (we have some now) with unit test metadata (no more having to
test on full runs)
3) The XML is left untouched not corrupted by being scribbled on in memory,
so it is a true record which we can re-output.
4) Forrest and/or Text documentation is now a "plugin"
5) The "complete" stage is done after XML loading, into the mirroring
object, so (1) better error handling (2) more dev/user friendly (not
dictated by historical XML-isms)
6) The pages and pages of xdoc generation are now using a simple Python xdoc
objects, making it far cleaner/easier to read/extend.
7) Generally easier to maintain/extend.

I need a few more unit tests (clearly, including 'including projects') but
I'll finish that off today and check back in. I've tagged the Python tree in
Gump as preOBJECTIFICATION.

regards

Adam