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sm-grimoire - Re: [SM-Grimoire] proliferation of *-cvs spells

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Subject: Discussion of Spells and Grimoire items

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  • From: Duane Malcolm <d.malcolm AT auckland.ac.nz>
  • To: Grimoire <sm-grimoire AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Grimoire] proliferation of *-cvs spells
  • Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 08:03:19 +1300

Andrew wrote:

While I like keeping things simplified, and agree that it may take
more effort to build a provides infrastructure for a number of spells,
Im not sure that combining spells is a good idea. Like alley_cat said,
it breaks down when something needs the cvs version of a spell, but
not the regular stable version. Spells that dont care can just use
the requires clause, while ones that need the cvs version can use the
good'ol depends. Secondly, what will a gaze version give you? If the
logic to determine the spells version is in PREPARE (do you want CVS
or regular), then the output can be inconclusive, and more work has to
go into keeping the spell working depending on what case we are using.

For example if the build process is different between stable and cvs, two
seperate spells would have two different BUILD files and that would be the
end of it, but if it was the same spell we would end up having to have
some logic to decide what commands to run. In the case where the build
process is the same, the cvs version can just soft link to the build
file of the stable spell. If the cvs spell ends up with some new stuff
that needs to be taken care of in BUILD we can replace the cvs BUILD file
with a new one. Then when the new cvs stuff ends up in stable, the cvs
BUILD file can be transfered back to the stable spell. This is opposed
to maintaining a monolithic build file and adjusting the scripting code
as time moves on. The seperate spell solution seems simpler to me.

A soft link from the cvs BUILD to the stable BUILD script could lead to problems. If someone edit the stable BUILD script it is difficult to know if there is a soft link relying on it. This may then break the cvs spell. This would mean more checking. Just a comment.

With a provides/requires infrastructure (which i agree may take more
effort), gaze'ing the version and DETAILS will come up with the right
value every single time.

One expansion for cast that comes to mind would be to generalize provides,
so one could cast X11-LIBS, and be presented with the listing of all
spells that provide X11-LIBS. Then the choice is still in the users hands,
with no loss of control from before, and its formalized.

Sidenote:
Also, if I want to mirror the entire grimoire using just summon (because
no other tool really exists), and I haven't decided which version I
want, what will happen? What if I decide I want the cvs version? Then
the stable version will never get downloaded from that spell (why would
I need it?) With two spells everything still works.

just my 2 cents.


-Andrew







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