Michel Schinz wrote:
> Le Lundi, 9 fév 2004, à 07:21 Europe/Zurich, Anthony Carrico a écrit :
>
> >Sunterlib is organized as a collection of independent libraries. I
> >would like to keep them independent, so I envision each library having
> >a local pkg-def.scm for example:
>
> So, I've given some thought to this issue, and have come to the
> conclusion that I need a bit more information about what we want to
> provide exactly before going further.
>
> The main question I have can be summarised as: What relationship is
> there between the "master" package (sunterlib) and the "sub-packages"
> (args-fold and others)? I see basically two possibilities.
>
> The first one would be to say that sub-packages are completely
> independent from the "master" package. ...
>
> The second solution would be to introduce the notion of sub package.
> ...
>
> To me, it seems that the first solution is both the easiest to
> understand for the user, and the easiest to implement. In the case of
> sunterlib, I would also think that this is the most natural, as the
> various sub-packages of sunterlib are only loosely coupled. But of
> course I'd like your opinion on that since you're the one in charge
> here.
At first glance, the first solution seemed preferable to me, as it is
easy for the user to understand and easy to implement, as you already
said. And as long as sunterlib is the only package that is rather a
"collection-package" of subpackages than a real package by its own, I
don't see a reason why to put too much effort into the install
library.
On the other, if we expect more packages like sunterlib, or would like
to have more of that kind, and every developer of such a package had
to come up with its own machinery to install the subpackages, a
define-subpackage solution seems preferable to me. Otherwise,
developers had , again and again to write code to, e.g., pass
arguments down to subpackages, resolve dependencies between
subpackages (if we want such a feature), abstract over similar options
for subpackages, etc. Also, all information about the subpackage
could be written in a single file, which I consider an advantage for
the developer. Furthermore, the notion that an install-script is able
to install only parts of a package is not so unfamiliar to an average
user, I think (see, e.g., installation process of Linux
distributions).
Concerning the question if the sunterlib packages (or alike) would
appear as one or several packages, I would prefer the several packages
solution. Otherwise user would end up having to remember which
subpackage was included in which superpackage, once there are more
"collection-packages" like sunterlib.
What we definitely don't want, I guess, is that the user can decide
about that (i.e., let subpackages appear as one or several packages)
during the installation process, as scsh scripts depending on some
subpackages won't be portable anymore. Only the developer should be
able to decide about that, if at all.
Andreas.
pgp2rYfXnpo8p.pgp
Description: PGP signature
|