[Asterisk-Users] AEL2 -- The Future --

[Steve Murphy]

Call to Action!

For those who have the courage/ability, 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. 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!

In answer to that, my reply is the Parable of the Programmer:

******
In the beginning, there was machine code, and the Programmer thought it
was great.

Then, along came the assembler, and the programmer found it very useful.

Then, along came the macro assembler, and the programmer was excited
indeed.

But then came the "programming language", and the programmer left behind
the "macro assembler", and never went back to it.
******

Now, the goal is for the same to happen to you, in moving from the
extensions.conf method of programming dialplans to extensions.ael2.

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. ;^)

murf


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