- Change class hierarchy, so that interfaces are no longer under instruments. The new hierarchy highlights the separation between interface classes which implement communication with boards (e.g. VISA library or Linux-GPIB library to communicate with GPIB boards, socket to communicate with network devices, etc.), and instrument classes (both abstract and concrete) which represent specific devices. Some device may be connected in different manners, and some physical boards can be addressed with various libraries.
- Allow to use simple string description, e.g. VISA style string ("GPIB0::1::INSTR"), or IP address "192.168.0.4", in the __init__ method of devices, instead of an Interface object. The most appropriate Interface class will be infered from Instrument.default_interface class variable. Default association can be changed with the fluidlab.interface.set_default_interface function. In the future, permanent custom association could be provided with a dedicated user configuration file.
- Change all interface and instrument __init__ method to restrain from opening communication. Indeed, one must not rely on the __del__ method to close the connection. Instead, the underlying interface must be opened and closed using the open() and close() method, or a context manager must be used. The context manager will open and close the underlying interface appropriately. The Interface abstract base class maintains a boolean to retain the opened/closed state. Concreate Interface class must only implement _open and _close methods without checking openness. If some device requires initialisation communication, this should not be done in __init__. Either use a dedicated instance method, and call it explicitely, or overload the driver __enter__/__exit__ methods.
- Split the package fluiddyn between one base package and specialized packages.