Arusha Project: favored technologies

The Arusha Project aims to be fairly agnostic about the techologies that collaborating sysadmins use to create their solutions.

That said, we plan to be somewhat narrow-minded about technologies to start with, while we work out some of the basic Arusha ideas. We will then mellow with age (no timescale known).

Python

We're using Python for the core ARK code. We think it the best vehicle for getting a clear (object-oriented) idea of what we're trying to do.

Perl (and lovely languages, such as Haskell) will definitely be welcome in the future.

Note well: Though the core ARK code is written in Python, you can put Bourne shell (/bin/sh), Python, or Perl code in the ``methods'' of your ARK configuration (.xml) files.

(Most ARK day-to-day action is in the configuration files.)

We intend to record all the info about packages, users, etc., etc., -- well, for just about everything in the system -- in XML documents. (For XML starting points, see "XML in 10 points" and/or Phil Wadler's "XML: Some hyperlinks minus the hype".)

This gives us a standard way (a) to say precisely what we want recorded; and (b) to borrow lots of code/ideas/whatever for manipulating just such info.

Unsurprisingly, we want to use XML for any documentation. DocBook is the main game in town, so we'll go with that.

We like the idea of having a single format for inputs, outputs (once Web browsers start grokking XML directly), and documentation (generated and otherwise), across all sysadmin activity... sounds like we might hope for some synergistic wins.

Having said all that: it's not a big deal...