Stdlib system interaction API: call for feedback

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That sounds a lot like Node.js’s callbacks —with the associated callback hell that eventually got resolved through async/await.

These days, I tend to look at Go’s standard library, rather than Python’s, for inspiration on how to implement certain things in Fortran.

Go’s approach, when things may fail, is to always return an error object —which, in Fortran terms, means using subroutines rather than functions.

And there’s also the factory-function-and-then-methods approach, something like:

module mod1
    type :: process
        ...
    contains
        procedure :: process_id
        procedure :: run     ! synchronous
        procedure :: start   ! asynchronous
        procedure :: wait    ! wait for asynchronous
        ...
        generic :: write(formatted) => write_formatted_process
        ...
    end type

    interface process
        module procedure process_new
    end interface

contains
    function process_new(...) result(new)
        type(process) :: new
        ...
    end function

    pure function process_id(this) result(pid)
        ...
    end function

    subroutine start(this, ...)
        ...
    end subroutine

    subroutine run(this, ..., output, error)
        ...
        character(:), allocatable, optional, intent(out) :: output
        ...
    end subroutine

    subroutine wait(this, output, error)
        ...
    end subroutine

    ...
end module

See, for example, the exec package.

Cooperative locking comes to mind —e.g., if two applications use the same locking mechanism provided by stdlib.

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