Public SourceMage Discussion List

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

As a user (of window managers), I think it'd be useful to be able to try
both simultaneously. Regardless of how its implemented. I dont particularly
care if theres one spell that does both, or two spells, so long as I
can try them side-by-side (given what people have said, that seems like
a reasonable/common thing to do).

I agree its a bit confusing that the enlightenment spell installs
a binary called e16 and the e17 spell installs a binary called
enlightenment. I guess that was a result of the upstream guys changing
names around and unintentional on our part. That should definitly get
resolved somehow.

Maybe have the 'enlightenment' spell deprecated in favor of an e16
spell. Then have an e16-profile and an e17-profile, and have e-profile
ask then depend on one or the other. And lastly have the enlightenment
spell be a fake-spell that asks the user what they'd like, then depends
on either e16 or e17. Thoughts?

It seems like that would give the greatest amount of freedom. Users
could cast e-profile or cast enlightenment if they just want enlightenment
and arent aware that they have a choice beforehand. Or if they know
what they want, they can just cast e16-profile or e17-profile (OR e16
or e17 as the case may be) or both. Maybe theres a better way to do this
without extra fake spells? Am I oversimplifying this into just a
spell-UI issue?

Or maybe have the spells ask the user if they want one or both?



Im also curious how the enlightenment team sees e16 vs e17, do they
think of e17 as a major overhaul to e16, or is e17 a new piece of
software related to e16 by name alone? Or somewhere in-between?

Looking at the enlightenment website under "Enlightenment foundation
libraries" on the front page:
    "In developing DR17 it was made clear that we needed an entirely new
    set of libraries and tools."

So theres that, some of e17 is "entirely new". And they've specifically
made the e16 software install a binary named 'e16', leaving e17 to
install a binary called 'enlightenment'.

In the past it seems like we've split up spells without much grief. There
are gnome1 and gnome2 libs and apps. Maybe that was because gtk+
and gtk+2 are both used by certain apps. I wasn't involved in that
discussion, presumably its in the archives somewhere though. We also
seem to have seperate apache spells for version 1 and 2, although they
seem to conflict with one-another. Theres also mozilla and firefox,
but not firefox-cvs. Im trying to figure where the line gets drawn.

In the past was there some rule we followed for when to merge or split
spells? Do the rules change if theres a multitude of spells involved as
opposed to just one spell (like firefox, which has a stable and
cvs version)? Do the rules change if the software actively installs
non-conflicting files on its own?

-Andrew

-- 
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| Andrew D. Stitt  | acedit at armory.com    | astitt at sourcemage.org | 
| irc: afrayedknot | Sorcery Team Lead       |      ftp://t.armory.com/ |
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