Re: [Scrollkeeper-devel] What about the distributions?

[Ali A. <ali...@au...>]

* Eric Bischoff (eb...@cy...) wrote at 22:28 on 27/10/00:
> Le Jeudi 26 Octobre 2000 01:21, vous avez écrit :
> >
> > Partial databases would suck. basically you are saying a "database per
> > file" which would suck if you have hundreds of files! (imagine Scrollkeeper
> > has to open each file, read from it, build XML tree, close file, extract
> > metadata). It would be much more efficient to do this over one file.
> 
> We can build a single one out of the "not-installed-yet" partial databases.

When do we do the "building" though? It is NOT acceptable to do the merging
whenever we do an API function or whenever the "browser starts".

We "could" make scrollkeeper a daemon (like oafd and gconfd). We could then
have a 'scrollkeeper_init()' API function that would check if the daemon is
running (if its not, it would execute it). You could also have a
is_scrollkeeper_daemon_running or something. I think this is very similiar to
the way oafd is done.

The daemon would "merge" the not-installed-yet to the "single one" when
started and every <X> amount of time 

This is up to Laszlo though.
 
> > I think forcing people to use a post-install spec-file is not as "bad" as
> > the alternative.
> 
> Those people are distribution packagers. So far OMF and scrollkeeper is a big 
> nothing in the linux world, and you would want them to change all their spec 
> files? Even if they agreed they would not have the time.
>
> > You "could" turn scrollkeeper into a daemon that automatically merges
> > "partial databases" into a big one, or you "could" install a cron script.
> > But to me these are even worse solutions than just making people add an
> > extra script to the spec file.
> 
> You can't "make" people do what you want. If they don't want it, they won't 
> do it.

Exactly - people have to /want/ to use Scrollkeeper

> > Your arguments for no script in the spec file are:
> >
> > 1) It'll take more time for the RPM or DEB to install due to the "slow"
> > post-install/post-uninstall scripts
> >
> > - oh wow, an extra couple of seconds for the RPM or deb to
> > install/uninstall??? I don't think this is that big of a deal
> 
> Right. This is not the real point.
> 
> > 2) People are not going to want to change the spec files.
> >
> > - Well, if people want to use scrollkeeper, then they will have to write an
> >   OMF file, hack the Makefile.am's and possibly configure.in's - What would
> > be wrong with adding the spec file to this list too?
> 
> It's not the same people!!!!
> 
> The developper will write the OMF file, hack Makefile.am and configure.in. 
> It's a nothing in front of what a development task is.
> 
> The distribution packager will just ignore those new files. He will probably 
> don't even notice they are there. They will probably simply get copied with 
> the HTML files without he notices them. He will probably not even know 
> scrollkeper exists.
> 
> > If you want your docs
> > to utilize scrollkeeper, then you will have to support it.
> 
> "you" in the above sentence is two different persons.

If you speaking about Debian, the package author is "usually" different than
the packager.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it is usually the opposite with RPMS. The
author also handles the .spec files

Regards,
Ali