Re: some try-ark suggestions

On 12/6/01 15:33, [email protected] wrote:

>But this is screwy.  Success or failure appears to depend on getting just
>the right mix of .tar, or .tar.gz.
[...]
>I think there is a very real problem here.  You can't depend on the user
>having just the right mix of package file formats.  Either you must
>strictly require the package-x.y.z.tar.gz format across the board, or
>better you code for every reasonable possibility.

I think this sort of makes sense with regards to how things are shipped. 
The sidai team is setup to take the tarball *as it comes*. So for 
instance, some things come as '.tar.gz', some as '.tgz'; python comes as 
something like 'Python-2.1.tar.gz' or perhaps 'BeOpen-Python-2.0.tar.gz', 
etc.; some of these unpack into the obvious directories, others don't.

Traditionally gzip shipped as 'gzip-n.m.tar' since they assumed you might 
not already have gzip to uncompress a '.gz', but everyone with a UNIX 
installation should have some kind of tar (on a bare Solaris box this is 
a good assumption). I took a look on ftp.gnu.org and I see that they 
offer both now.

[Incidentally, this is why Arusha tries to build gzip first before 
tackling any of the others.]

>In other words, if the user has, say, the following
>
>-rw-r--r--    1 berto    berto     1064960 Jun  9 08:31 gzip-1.3.tar
>-rw-r--r--    1 berto    berto      332269 Jun  9 08:34 rsync-2.4.6.tar.gz
>-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      2170104 Jun 12 08:10 textutils-2.0.14.tgz
>-rw-r--r--    1 berto    berto      287239 May 21 11:19 bison-1.25.tar.Z
>-rw-r--r--    1 berto    berto      380995 May 21 11:19 flex-2.5.4a.tar.bz2
>
>the Arusha code should take this all in stride and just Do the Right Thing
>in all cases.

As you say, it would perhaps make sense for the assemble-source method to 
try to Do The Right Thing if it can't find the source as it expected it, 
but this isn't necessarily trivial because the default assemble-source 
method is overidden in various places - gzip being a prime example, where 
the gzip version doesn't try to uncompress it first.

>Oh, I repeat my assertion that you need to embellish the "Test drive with
>try-ark" section of the try-ark1.html page with additional commentary.
>On the face of it, the demo is underwhelming.
[...]
>What is sidai's value-added?

I see what you mean, but I'm not sure what we should say. See, really 
we're not trying to sell sidai at all, but ARK on it's own doesn't do a 
whole hell of a lot. So if you want to try it out you have to start with 
something and sidai is the most developed policy we have.

I have a question for you: what would you like to do with Arusha? If the 
answer is you don't know what you could do with it, then I guess that's 
where we need to start writing. If you have ideas, but you don't know how 
Arusha might apply to them, then that'd be great too as we can start 
taking them as case studies to flesh out.

:-j


-- 
jonathan hogg, one good idea ltd, 131 queen margaret dr., glasgow g20 8pd
http://www.onegoodidea.com/ tel:+44-(0)7976-614338 fax:+44-(0)7970-537451