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<p>----- Original message -----
<br>> Hi!
<br>>
<br>> syslog-ng comes with a 'dummy' module, that does nothing, but emit a
<br>> notice whenever it receives a message. I doubt anyone uses it, because
<br>> it is useless, and serves as an aid for module writers only, as a
<br>> skeleton to build on.
<br>>
<br>> However, it is built AND installed by default, which is kinda awkward,
<br>> in my opinion, and perhaps a bit confusing too: when I see a dummy
<br>> module automatically installed, I start to wonder just what the heck it
<br>> is good for and why it is there in the first place?
<br>>
<br>> Since it's completely useless, I'd like to propose either of the
<br>> following:
<br>>
<br>> 1) Remove the module completely from the source code.
<br>>
<br>>  The rationale behind this is that it's a very basic example, shows
<br>>  very little about how a destination driver should work, and is even a
<br>>  little bit stale here and there.
<br>>
<br>>  For example, the grammar directly pokes the driver structure, which
<br>>  is a bad habit (accessors are a whole lot better!).
<br>>
<br>>  Furthermore, when I wanted to write a driver, I looked at the dummy
<br>>  driver first, but after a couple of minutes, I concluded it has so
<br>>  very little information, that it's not enough for me as a starting
<br>>  point. So I started to look at other drivers, and learned from there.
<br>>
<br>>  In that sense, it doesn't even succeed at being a reasonable
<br>>  skeleton, or starting point.
<br>>
<br>>  A HOWTO document, or something similar about the architecture of the
<br>>  various drivers would be much much more useful, but this document is
<br>>  yet to be written.
<br>>
<br>> 2) Keep the module, but don't install it, ever.
<br>>
<br>>  As a compromise, the module could be kept, but not installed. This
<br>>  way we still have a very small example, but it's not installed
<br>>  needlessly.
<br>>
<br>> I think it's obvious I'd rather go with the first option, but perhaps
<br>> there's good reasons for keeping it, that I overlooked. The decision is
<br>> in Bazsi's hand, anyway.
<br>
<br>I completely agree it should be removed, it's been the first plugin of syslog-ng when I was working on modularizing the grammar and the core.
<br>
<br>So RIP. can you please post a patch that removes it?
<br>Thanks.</p>
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