Re: [Tclish-devel] Re: Installer applications

[Steve C. <ste...@mq...>]

On Thursday 19 July 2001 18:05, Peter Farmer wrote:
> Steve Cassidy wrote:
> > My current feeling is that the following applications should come into
> > being:
> >
> >  A tcl package installer. Able to download and install tcl extensions
> > consisting of either pure tcl code or tcl and shared libraries. This
> > might one day be included in the core distribution.
>
> Yup. immediately useful for most TCL projects. No reason it have A GUI
> version as well.

Jeff Hobbs has just indicated that Active State is on this trail.  I'm not 
sure what the scale of their system will be (I note that Andeas is a 
subscriber to this list though...).  I don't think that this should stop us 
talking about a solution since I think the package description format used 
here should be the same as that for other installer components.

For a non-gui version are you imagining something like:

package install tcllib

which could then be invoked from package unknown in some circumstances 
(although not by default I think). 


> > These should be platform neutral where possible
>
> The main reason I started the tclxml installer was to have a
> crossplatform installation facility. I would hope this project strives
> to be as inclusive as possible. I guess that means coming up with a
> really comprehensive virtualisation of the union of existing platform
> capabilities . It also means allowing plenty of hooks into the process
> to allow quick hacks to support unforeseen platform-specific issues.

Since the major function of an installer is copying files to some location, 
the core functionality should be easy to put into place. On windows there are 
some obvious additional things to want to do, on unix there are some similar 
things that could be done under, eg. Gnome and KDE, on a Mac, there doesn't 
seem to be a lot to do at all. 


> > and configured via a simple
> > package description file such as that used by tclish or the tclxml
> > installer.
>
> cant think of a better way - except maybe "IXML" - eXtensible Installer
> Language ;-) . Steve Ball may have some
> enthusiasm for designing such a beast 8-).

While I'm certainly keen to sell XML, I don't know if it's appropriate here 
just because of the baggage needed to handle it in the installer (although 
the tcl only parser in tclxml is impressively small).  I think what we need 
here is something more like what you already have in your installer which is 
essentially a attribute/value list augmented with tcl code.


> Speaking on Steve Ball's behalf, it would be good to have the general
> designs take into account that we would want it to pug into a future
> x-platform build system with minimum fuss.


I think the relationship to a build system should be considered but it's my 
feeling at the moment that it should be a separate system to the installer. 
There are many systems where building can't take place but installing can 
(eg. most windows systems) and so any required dependancy between a build 
system and the install system is likely to cause trouble.  I really think 
that the install problem is quite a simple one which just needs some agreed 
decisions and shared code. The build problem is much harder.

Steve