Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 01:48:12AM +0200, Ladislav Hagara wrote:
> > it would essentially punish gurus for updating spells early, they'd have
> > to modify the spell to force the use of the master site, then remember
> > to go remove that a day or two later.
> 
> It is the sorcery's job.
Everything is sorcery's job, it should do your laundry too, I hate doing
laundry, want me to come over and make some cake while we wait?

> Sorcery should trying to download from MIRROR defined by the user. 
It does, unless you netselect, which is meant to override that
functionality anyway.
> It this MIRROR doesn't contain sources, sorcery should CHECK Main Site
Seeing as how most of the lists have the main site listed at the top,
if you dont use netselect thats the next one it should use, problem solved.
> (they are defined in /etc/sorcery/config GNU_URL,...) if it really offer
> sources.
Checking is dumb, if its there you may as well download it too IMO
(see my phone conversation).

>If Main Site doesn't contain sources (trying to download old version)
It wont download the old version because the file is named
uniquely. Either its there or it isnt.

> sorcery should download them from our fallback URLs.
We do use fallback mirrors if all the other mirrors fail.
Of course if all the other mirrors fail (or even the main one), it begs
the question of how the fallback mirrors are going to have it.

> If Main Site contains required sources, sorcery should try two or
>three MIRRORS and if they doesn't contais them, sorcery should download
>it from our fall back or the Main Site.
Im confused shouldnt we download it from the main site if it has them
(if thats the next one you check)? I thought the goal was to download
it from the first place we find.

If I pretend you meant that the main site doesnt contain the sources
and two or three mirrors dont either then we should immediatly goto
fallback mode....

That means that for all our European users, they will have to go halfway
around the world to a) california b) oregon c) an outdated ibiblio server
on the east coast. Im sure the users who asked for the url expand feature
will agree that its better to try other mirrors (netselected according
to their location) first rather than defaulting to the fallback mirrors
(which are still used after all the other mirrors fail anyway, and of
course have an extraordinarily low chance of having the source if all
the mirrors fail).

Its not going to hurt you to wait a few extra moments for sorcery to find
the latest and greatest edition of something if you absolutly have to
use test grimoire and update this very instant. Rewind a few months and
you had no mirror expanding at all, either the site you chose had it,
or you went to fallback mode. The cost of implementing an AI to pick
the single greatest and best place to download from for each and every
users demands is relatively high (IMO) given that the current scheme
will get you your file if it is on some known mirror somewhere in the
world and if you waited a few days for things to distribute and used
netselect, probably on the one closest to you. :)

-Andrew