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sm-sorcery - Re: [SM-Sorcery]sorcery: stable/devel spells

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Subject: Discussion of Sorcery related topics

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Nick Jennings <nkj AT namodn.com>
  • To: Ryan Abrams <rabrams AT sourcemage.org>
  • Cc: sm-sorcery AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Sorcery]sorcery: stable/devel spells
  • Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 11:03:22 -0700

On Mon, Sep 09, 2002 at 07:11:00AM -0500, Ryan Abrams wrote:
> Nick,
>
> Like I said, I may be, and probably am wrong. But I think the idea of a
> single spell is valuable enough that I am going to spend some time
> proving that to myself. I am not trying to discount your evaluation of
> the situation. I am just saying that I think there is a way to make it
> work (though it may be a crazy hack in the spell)
--------------------------------------------

I refuse to use a "crazy hack" because I do not think it's ok to "make
the exception" for sorcery.

I agree with everyone else, the idea of making a spell which:

A) Provides two branches (devel or stable) which are mutually exclusive
B) Allow you to keep track of the version installed in the standard
"sorcery way" (i.e. gaze installed <spellname>)
C) Simultaneously "magically" updating the version number

Is a very attractive feature. *However* no one thought enough of it to
include it in the list of features for 1.0, and I never heard a peep about
it myself until you asked me to "hack it in" to the sorcery spell.

There are other features, which *are* on the roadmap, that I think are
much more important (i.e. no way to get around them). The fact is, the
spells are not flexible enough for this. They *need* a VERSION number
and it *needs* to be manually updated, the grimoire team knows this
and has been dealing with it. I have absolutely no probels in being the
one who updates the version number for sorcery-stable whenever there is
a new release, big deal.

The one suggestiong for a fix I've heard, is simply having that version
be 'stable' or 'devel' which is *not* ok (and in my opinion sucks way more
than having two spells, I mean come on!?), we absolutely have to have a
'gaze installed sorcery' produce the version of sorcery you have installed.
If the branch is 'devel' the version should be the date string it was
installed on.


> I think Nathan's suggestion is a good one in fact, though it may not
> fix everything.

See my response to his post.


> Don't worry, I will not overwrite your work. If you have something
> working, I won't break it unless i have something better tested,
> working, and discussed among the group /after/ it's written. In the
> meantime, I will save it as something like "sorcery-new" or some such.
>
> I just am not thrilled about all our users switching from sorcery to
> sorcery-X and back again, simply because we couldn't find a way to fix
> the sorcery spell in the first place.

What are you talking about? I fixed the sorcery spell by reverting it
back to "the way it's meant to be". It was broken when we tried to
do it otherwise.

I don't think users are going to have too much trouble with the fact
that there is a 'sorcery-stable' and 'sorcery-devel' spell. Most wont
even have to deal with it, as they can just make the selection from
the sorcery menu, and be done with it.

I think the main problem is the developers who would rather cause bugs
and problems making a hack, rather than just accepting the fact that
we did not properly work this out early enough (and make real features
which support this behavior).

--
Nick Jennings
Sorcery Team Lead





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