Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Thomas Orgis <thomas-forum AT orgis.org>]

Am Fri, 6 Oct 2006 14:31:22 +0200
schrieb "Andraž \"ruskie\" Levstik" <ruskie AT mages.ath.cx>: 

> Flavien Bridault wrote :
> 
> > That would be good indeed that we normalize that. Not especially for us,
> > but above all for the users. It should be less confusing to have only
> > one convention.
> 
> We already normalized this:
> http://wiki.sourcemage.org/Multi_Version_Spells

What I really don't like is that a user cannot know from "gaze versions" what 
versions are in a spell.
It shows one of them... but one has to start casting to know if there aren't 
others.
That's a big minus for usability that could be worked around by better 
integration of multi version spells into sorcery.
But then again, it looks like supporting several versions of one program is 
growing to be a normal thing and the statement about one spell - one version 
(no complicated "slots" stuff or whatever) gets more and more hollow.

I myself am tempted to add a cvs option to the gnuplot spell since the stable 
release is just too aged to be usable to me.
Addition of a gnuplot-cvs spell would be more user-friendly, but not friendly 
for spells that depend on gnuplot.
One had to add new provider called GNUPLOT, make all depend on that instead 
of gnuplot itself...

So the hack of multiple versions provided by one spell hides the problem from 
our dependency system that still can pretend to follow the "one spell - one 
version" strategy.
I am unsure if I am pro or con on that... but what I am sure about is that 
the user should be know in advance what version options he has for a spell.
I'd like problems solved like what the manual "summon <multi-version-spell>" 
should do (imagine summoning on one box for installing on another box that 
doesn't have internet, so there isn't even a config from last cast).
One needs means to say "summon this version of <multi-verison-spell>". 
So my main point is if we want to settle multi version spells, we should 
fully take account of that and support the user in working with them.


Thomas.

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