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  • From: Benoit PAPILLAULT <benoit.papillault AT sourcemage.org>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] ISO generation
  • Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:31:31 +0100

Andrew a écrit :
karsten said (paraphrasing) we'll seperate architectural differences
into config files.

benoit said (paraphrasing) we should have one script since its less
complex since there is less maintainence work

No. I said it could be simpler to use some switch/case construction for the mkisofs generation, not for the whole thing. And I say so only for arch-specific stuff which are limited in the whole ISO generation process. Don't let people think that I'm saying a "big script" is the way to go. I don't think it is.

These are conflicting statements about general software design
principles. Karsten's argument says that having architectural differences
seperated into configuration files will lead to less work, while Benoit's
argument says that having all the architectural differences glommed into
the same script will mean less work (but he's said theres no hardcoded
stuff in his scripts).

I would have to say its a better approach for the long term to have
our software be modular so that architectural differences can be
encapsulated in those modules and configuration data. Then the higher
level tasks can be driven by configuration details to use whatever pieces
of modular code are necessary. In the end, the modular approach becomes
less complex than the more monolithic approach of having everything in
one script for "ease of maintainence".

For example there could be a configuration entry for what bootloaders
to use, the x86 would have lilo and grub, the ppc would have yaboot,
and the higher level scripts wouldnt need to know the difference.
Or as benoit alludes to, the way mkisofs is used varies between platforms
so that can be encapsulated in a module rather than a case statement.


-Andrew

You deserve to write some design documentation for the Cauldron Team. Since we are discussing what will be our next generation script, that would be really helpful. Really.

Benoit PAPILLAULT, ISO guru




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