Re: Re: ebuilds in XML

It looks like an interesting proposal, but... there are a _lot_ of 
technical requirements, and you haven't approached any of them 
whatsoever as of yet.

I'm all for working out whatever is best, but at the same time things 
being so abstract don't mean much.  not discouraging where you're 
headed, but more is really required than saying "it should be this, and 
it should do this"   We really need proposals that are more mature than 
this to make proper considerations.

That being said, it is also fairly safe to assume that we don't want to 
get too lofty with this proposed new system.  Building something 100% 
from the ground up is not an efficient goal for 1.0 in my eyes, but 
starting to lay in the proper foundations for later in the game is 
essential.

Also as I stated in previous email I don't think that a full XML build 
system is 'the right' approach to things here for several reasons, and 
accessibility is one.  Most developers are comfortable with a shell 
styled language, but very few are comfortable in XML.  I for one don't 
thin XML is a proper solution for all of builds, but it is a fantastic 
solution for metadata (it was targetted towards portable data after 
all).

Other's opinions may vary, and very likely will.

Gerk


On Sunday, June 29, 2003, at 8:39 PM, Chris Johnson wrote:

> Heya Gerk,
> I wanted to point out some parallel thoughts I've been writing on the 
> wiki.
> I'd appreciate a chance to chat with you to give us a chance to 
> reconcile
> and perhaps better synthesize thoughts... You are alluding to new
> architecture thoughts that I'd like to examine in more detail--any 
> chance
> of a link to a wiki page or forum post?  I have some anxiety that
> competing/complementary ideas will not make it into a draft that is 
> "born
> at 1.0", right?
>
> Here is what I have so far on my wiki page that I'd enjoy discussing (I
> linked this in a previous post, but to spur actual discussion, I 
> reprint
> here)
> http://wiki.zynot.org/zynot/moin.cgi/PackageFormatIdeas
> ====
>
> == Goals ==
>
>  1. Be easily hand-editable but also be machine-parseable for
>   1. running scripts (e.g. the install script portion of a package)
>   2. dependency graphing and compatibility checking
>   3. statistical comparison, other uses of package metadata
>  2. Be forward-compatible. Wha?!? Well, an old installer should be 
> able to
> cope with newer packages, and it should deal with non-critical metadata
> newly added to packages gracefully. This is related to package 
> versioing
> but is different.
>  3. Be versioned and define a standard naming convention that is human 
> and
> machine readable
>  4. Be easily extensible for dependency and optional use information. 
> This
> is known in the gentoo world as the 'per-package USE variable' 
> problem. A
> package should describe what it Needs and what it can Use, in addition 
> to
> what it provides
>  5. A corrolary to dependency information is finer granularity in 
> dependency
> information; e.g. arbitrary-precision dependency graphs expressed per
> package rather than more the simple 'depends on >= foo-4.0'
>
> Gerk, the main thing I want to figure out before it gets too late is 
> whether
> rdf can be used and can fulfill some difficult objectives; e.g. points 
> 2,
> 3, 4, 5 above (and 1.3).
>
> Chris
>
>
> mark guertin wrote:
>
>> Heya
>>
>> I have also been toying with this sort of thing exactly, and i think 
>> we
>> will have some more detailed specs coming really soon, it's a very
>> similar approach, but there are quite a bit more things that will have
>> to be taken into account for the metadata to be a proper setup...
>>
>> i.e.
>> 1) will have to track arches
>> 2) will have to track exact pkg revision numbering from server
>> 3) will have to support USE like funtionality, i.e. <src_uri
>> use=foo>http://blah.com</src_uri>  * there will need to be many
>> conditional setups in addition to this *
>> 4) will have to be used as transport methods only most likely, the
>> general consensus is that devs that I have spoken to do not want to
>> write fully in XML, therefor the meat of the builds would need to be
>> referenced by the xml files and in a shell-like language, and there
>> would have to be tools to assist in building and reading them for both
>> dev and user.  Not everyone is (or cares to be) an xml expert, and
>> accessibility is a must.
>>
>> On that note, will have more info to follow on what we've been 
>> throwing
>> around very soon as well.
>>
>> I do agree that this is a great method to follow, but there are still
>> quite a bit of logistics to work out with it.  Once we have a more
>> thorough proposal I';ll make sure we start a proper thread here to
>> follow it through.
>>
>> Gerk
>>
>
>
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