[Asterisk-Dev] AEL2 -- call to arms

[Steve Murphy]

Call to Action!

This is similar to a posting I made in the user's group... but not
identical!

For those who have the courage/time, go grab an SVN copy of the 
asterisk release, the HEAD version,

and my latest patch, from:  http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=6021

Right now, the latest version of the patch is 0.10.

apply it to the SVN head version, and do a "make".

Read the Wiki on AEL2:  http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+AEL2

Look at the examples at: 
      http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/AEL+Example+Snippets

Then, sit down and rewrite your extension.conf
to /etc/asterisk/extensions.ael2

Use "utils/aelparse -n" to check your file. Get rid of all the syntax
errors. And semantic errors/warnings, if applicable. Repeat until clean.

Then, see if your extensions.ael2 loads. Remove all the contexts except
[general] from your extensions.conf, and restart asterisk. Test the new
dialplan.

Now, at this point, you have some information that would be useful to
me! I need to know your trials, troubles, confusions, and solutions.
Perhaps there's some added check that AEL2 could make that might have
warned or helped you. Perhaps you'll help find some bug and solify AEL2.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD I WANT TO DO ALL THAT WORK?, you might ask!

As developers, and guys helping out on the mailing lists, answering
questions, you might realise the possible benefits of new users (and
even old ones) being able to get their dialplans up and running easier,
quicker, and with fewer problems. It could actually mean fewer posts
with elementary questions... who knows? We can dream, can't we?

And, as developers, I hope you realize that programming dialplans at a
higher level will make you more efficient as programmers, more
productive, and reduce your development costs. And the checking and
diagnostics are aimed at finding common errors at load time, not at
runtime!

If you don't think it will improve the quality of the code you write for
dialplans, or reduce your costs of dialplan development, then we'll
scrap the project and hand ourselves over to public humiliation. ;^)

So help out, here! This is your future! It'll be easier to add checks
and constructs NOW, than it will be later. Give this stuff a spin, send
me feedback.

murf

-- 
Steve Murphy <murf at e-tools.com>
Electronic Tools Company