Using C++ for type-safe, intellisense enabled XML generation

[eruffaldi]

1) extract Component signatures 2) generate stub code 3) include code into program that binds components (intellisense enabled) 4) compile and run emitting XML or directly launching CoCo

We implement it in C++ but could be implemented with any typed language

Pros: faster editing, support for arguments Cons: little slower

We could limit the Cons as follows: 1) let launcher support this file at command line with -x automatically compiling and executing and passing the correct includes 2) perform step 1 with some form of caching

[eruffaldi]

Working prototype:

#include "cocoxx.hpp"

int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
    coco::CoCoApp h;

    // create objects and assign names (TODO anonymous)
    auto x = coco::vision::OpenNIReaderTask("reader");
    auto y = coco::vision::X264EncoderTask("enc");

    // returns Connectionf or customization
    y.image_IN << x.rgb_buffer_OUT;

    // put into container
    h << x << y;

    h.generateXML();
    //h.run();

    return 0;
}

Example with CLion