Re: Please drop the ^main^ thing

[Shiro Kawai <shiro@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Abdulaziz Ghuloum <aghuloum@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Please drop the ^main^ thing
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:10:23 +0300

> On Sep 26, 2009, at 5:18 AM, Shiro Kawai wrote:
> > If the library is untarred somewhere else
> > and 'make install'ed, auxiliary files can be left in the
> > untarred site (or 'make install' puts them in different
> > place).
> 
> If you have a package manager, then it's not a problem,
> except that you cannot run files directly from the sources
> directory.  You always have to install then run.  Right?

Yes.  But the discussion shifted to assume there are enough
demand that packages may be just untarred directly under
a directory in the search path. 

> If you have a package "Acme Foo" that has the libraries you
> listed above, there are two options:
> 
> With the implicit main, you get
> (acme foo)         => acme/foo/main.sls
> (acme foo helper1) => acme/foo/helper1.sls
> ...
> E.g., everything under a single directory.
> 
> If we don't have an implicit main, you'd have to get:
> (acme foo)         => acme/foo.sls
> (acme foo helper1) => acme/foo/helper1.sls
> ...
> E.g., there are files under "acme" and files under "acme/foo".

Nah, the discussion is like this.  Suppose there are two
packages.

Sample package 1:
  Your package have sources for (acme foo),
  (acme foo helper1), (acme foo helper1 auxutil) and README.
Sample package 2:
  Your package have single source for (acme bar) and README.

Then files may be expanded to:

"Everything under a single directory" policy:

  package 1:
     acme/foo/main.sls
     acme/foo/helper1.sls
     acme/foo/helper1/auxutil.sls
     acme/foo/README

  package 2:
     acme/bar/main.sls
     acme/bar/README

Not much here to confuse, right?

"No implicit main policity":

  package 1:
     acme/foo.sls
     acme/foo/helper1.sls
     acme/foo/helper1/auxutil.sls
     acme/foo/README  ? maybe...

  package 2:
     acme/bar.sls
     ... where to put README?  create bar subdir *just* for README? ...

> I feel stronger towards the second, leaving it to Andreas's
> package manager to deal with the first.

Yeah, "we'll have smart package manager that deal with mess"
is one solution.  But I do understand Derick's concern;
relying on extra software component, which isn't even built,
doesn't seem a good practice.   "Untar under a search path"
will be guaranteed to work with minimum requirement.
(I personally think 'make' is a safe bet, but opinions vary.)

--shiro