Be it files in a code repository, or an API resource, or a physical machine -- all of them have manuals of usage of some sort:

- if it's a machine, that operation manual comes in form of a book, help file or reference manual,
- if it is an API, the instructions may come in its schema response,
- if it's a code repository, it often comes as readme with some Makefile, that implements a kind of callable interface to the repository itself.

It would be great if we could start using these interfaces in a sort of plug-and-play fashion, that we can use things like mouse or keyboard.

Here's where "UseMe" standard would come in -- we would choose a general interface description language, and use it to describe systems and subsystems of all sorts, using the machine-readable UseMe format, that would work like an abstraction layer on top of those various operation manuals, Makefiles, API schemas, and other type of interface descriptions.

Just like we have a "readme.txt" for humans, we might want to have "useme.txt", and in fact, the UseMe could even be integrated as part of readme files, by having a special section with a special tag like %USEME%, that would allow the developers and engineers inject updated interface specifications into ReadMe itself.

All kind of APIs (GraphQL, REST, SOAP, XML-RPC, etc.) would return not their schema, but the UseMe response.

This would allow people and machines to interface with systems directly with flat learning curve.
-- Mindey, Oct 02 2020

0oo.li - "UseMe" standard https://0oo.li/method/989/useme-standard
(link with more details) [Mindey, Oct 02 2020]

//This would allow people and machines to interface with systems directly with flat learning curve//

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAAAAAHAAAAAAA
-- Voice, Oct 02 2020


I see that [Voice] has real-world experience of systems integration.

I think there's a part of the ISA95 standard which represents a move in this direction, but at this point it's very far from working as imagined.

And it's OK, [Voice]; sip on this scotch until the flashbacks go away.
-- pertinax, Oct 02 2020



random, halfbakery