Trying ARK feedback

<[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.sysutils.ark.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Will:

Following is a detailed and rather lengthy account of my experiences with,
and reactions to, trying out Arusha thus far.

Some of this is The Pot Calling the Kettle Black in that you might fairly
level similar criticisms against PIKT.

Anyway, without further ado:

--http://ark.sourceforge.net/download.html

  case sensitivities:  Sidai should be sidai, Sample1 should be sample1

  You say to

    cvs -z3 checkout <team-name>

  I fumbled a bit, failing with 'cvs -z3 checkout ark' until I successfully
  tried 'cvs -z3 checkout ARK'.  Aha, I thought, case is important.  So,
  seeing the Sidai and Sample1 team names, I tried doing a 'cvs -z3 checkout
  Sidai' and 'cvs -z3 checkout Sample1', except that, oops, no they should
  be all lower case ('sample1' and 'sidai').

  A bit frustrating, but I can deal with it.

--http://ark.sourceforge.net/try-ark1.html

  % cd $ARK_SRC/myteam1/packages

  The packages (plural) dir is empty.  Should be

  % cd $ARK_SRC/myteam1/package

--Why .ark-profile?  Why not .ark_profile (a la .bash_profile)?

  Moreover, you have the environment variable ARK_PROFILE (with underscore)
  referring to .ark-profile (with hyphen).

--team.xml:  A pain to have to edit every path.  Variables?  (Or PIKT macros?!)

--hosts/ (info about hosts at your site):  Refers to "much like the
  appropriate one in 'sample1'."  My sample1/hosts dir is empty.

  In fact, for every site I checked out (ARK, sidai, sample1)--all hosts
  dirs are empty!

--in try-ark:

  export ARK_PROFILE;ARK_PROFILE=/users/fp/partain/.ark-profile-sample1

  .ark-profile (without the appended -sample1)?

  for pkg in rsync--2.4.6 shtool--1.5.1 m4--1.4 ; do

  Why the special treatment for these packages?

--First attempt at try-ark:

  $ ./try-ark 2>&1 | tee /tmp/try-ark.1.out
  ./try-ark: warning: this script may be overly paranoid and, um, wrong...
  repository info for team sidai is wrong in /home/berto/.ark-profile

  Added

    repository[sidai]    = /workspace/partain/ark/sidai

  to .ark-profile.  I had left that out because I don't want to mess
  with sidai stuff at this point.  I just want the core ARK stuff and
  what little I want to first attempt in myteam1.

  Why is Sidai insinuating itself into the picture at this point?  Sure,
  it's the first among equals, but I'm thinking, "Am I about to mess my
  fresh Mandrake 8.0 installation with some unintentional, and unwanted,
  Sidai customizations?"

--Second attempt at try-ark:

  $ ./try-ark 2>&1 | tee /tmp/try-ark.2.out
  ./try-ark: warning: this script may be overly paranoid and, um, wrong...
  <entry name="PKGS_SRC" .../> in /home/berto/ark/myteam1/package/ALL.xml [/d/open-src] is not /usr/local/src

  Oh, right, I don't want to do everything, I just want to play around
  with installing flex and what appear to be the required basic ARK
  stuff.  (Not trusting that try-ark won't clobber the Mandrake 8.0
  default flex, bison, etc., etc., I'm trying to keep this as minimalist
  as possible.)

  So, I mv'ed to *-LATER every package-specific .xml file except
  flex--2.5.4.xml, also:

  mv'ed ALL.xml to ALL.xml-LATER

--Third attempt at try-ark:

  $ ./try-ark 2>&1 | tee /tmp/try-ark.3.out
  ./try-ark: warning: this script may be overly paranoid and, um, wrong...
  Can't open /home/berto/ark/myteam1/package/ALL.xml: No such file or directory at -e line 1.
  <entry name="PKGS_SRC" .../> in /home/berto/ark/myteam1/package/ALL.xml [] is not /usr/local/src

  mv'ed ALL.xml-LATER to ALL.xml

  Tried editing ALL.xml, replacing all 'workspace/partain/try-ark' with
  my own 'tmp/try-ark'.  Also, '/d/open-src' with my '/usr/local/src'.
  
--Fourth attempt at try-ark:

  [berto@localhost try-ark]$ ./try-ark 2>&1 | tee /tmp/try-ark.4.out
  ./try-ark: warning: this script may be overly paranoid and, um, wrong...
  + ./arkcmd package reveal --hosts=localhost --verbose --use-deps=max arkbase
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "./arkcmd", line 41, in ?
      things_mgr.doToolSubcommand()
    File "./ark/thing.py", line 151, in doToolSubcommand
      victims       = self.unpackSpecs(ark_ctrl.cmdLineNonOptions())
    File "./ark/thing.py", line 84, in unpackSpecs
      thing = self.lookup(thing_name,team_id)
    File "./ark/thing.py", line 45, in lookup
      team_id = ark.team.ACTING_TEAM().id
    File "./ark/team.py", line 22, in ACTING_TEAM
      _ActingTeam.instance = ArkTeam(acting_team_id)
    File "./ark/team.py", line 77, in __init__
      (self._is_prototype, self._xmlf) = xml_file.read(explicit_filename="%s/team.xml" % (ark.control.ArkControl().repository(team_id)))
    File "./ark/xmlfile.py", line 120, in read
      import xml.dom.ext.reader.Sax
  ImportError: No module named ext.reader.Sax

I look around some more and find the "missing" slicker.xml, slippy.xml
and other files, not in the "hosts" directory as stated but in the "host"
directory.

Your Web pages say to look in the (plural) "packages" and "hosts" dirs,
which are both empty, when in fact the content is in (singular) "package"
and "host".

So, I'm wondering should I create a localized version of slicker.xml
and put it in my (a) myteam1/hosts directory or my (b) myteam1/host
directory?

At this point, I'm thinking:

--Should I review the past several months of ark-dev postings to figure
  out where I've gone wrong? what I should do next?

--Post my problem report to ark-dev?  (That's what I'm doing right now.)

--Without looking at the ark-dev archives, I sense that I may be treading
  down some of the same dead-ends that Harlan (and others?) have taken (but
  Harlan has been brave enough to post accounts of his travels/travails).

--This is too much by-hand configuration, editing of this file and
  that.  I should be able to specify environment variables, in my
  .ark-profile, for

  --my $ARC_SRC (in my case, /home/berto/ark)
  --my TRY_AREA (in my case, /tmp/try-ark)
  --my OPEN_SRC (in my case, /usr/local/src)

  and so on.  Then, the XML files, also try-ark, should be able to
  reference those environment variables.  I shouldn't have to search for
  "***CONFIGURE-ME***" points in various scripts, or just stumble onto
  the fact that I have to do global substitutions in this or that file
  of '/workspace/partain' to '/home/berto' (or whatever).

  Or how about a common /etc/ARK.conf?

--Where is the on-disk equivalent of the try-ark1.html page?  That is,
  I looked in vain for a README or INSTALL file in what I cvs checked out.
  By putting the try instructions in a venue (the Web site) separate from
  the code (what the 'cvs checkout' grabs), don't you risk their getting
  out of sync?  So, I would say to skip the try-ark1.html.  Just have
  a page telling how to download the package, then keep an *up-to-date*
  INSTALL or README or TRYME file right there in the sample1 top-level
  directory.

--Do I have to know Python (and know it fairly well) to be able to use
  this thing?

--How many people have encountered similar sorts of hassles (similar to
  mine) and just given up interest?  (Sometimes I wonder the same thing
  about PIKT?)

--You may be setting the try-out barrier too high, not just for the
  casually interested user but also for the motivated, would-be
  developer.  I'm willing to stay the course and work past my
  cluelessness, but what about others?

I'm prepared to hear the reproach "RTFA!"  (Read the F'ing Archives!).

If it helps, this is my system environment:

--Mandrake 8.0
--Python 2.0
--PyXML-0.6.5-1

My checkouts of the ARK CVS repository were from the last couple of days.

At a similar point in a PIKT debug, I sometimes tell the user to send me
their (perhaps) screwed up config.  If it would help, I could make available
my (perhaps) screwed up myteam1 directory, together with other relevant
pieces.

Anyway, that's my initial zwei pfennigen.  I'm prepared to pitch in with
more installments.

Berto

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Osterlund, Unix Systems Manager                [email protected]
Grad School of Business, U of Chicago                       phone: 773/702-8898
1101 E. 58th Street, #309, Chicago, IL 60637, USA             fax: 773/702-0233
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