Re: [BuildStream] Optional virtual directory support [Was: BuildBox transitioning]

[Jürg Billeter <j bitron ch>]

Hi Tristan,

On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 21:20 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom via buildstream-
list wrote:
> On Mon, 2019-05-20 at 21:06 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom via
> buildstream-
> list wrote:
> > Hi,
> [...]
> > [...]
> > >   - error for element plugins that don't support the virtual
> > > directory API 
>
> Interestingly, it seems that elements which don't support virtual
> directory API were never discussed since we decided to break API and
> create BuildStream 2.
>
> Frankly, the only reason why virtual directory support was ever
> optional, was as a measure to ensure API compatibility in what was a
> stable API.
>
> Now that we are working on creating new API, is there any reason at all
> that we would allow this to be optional for plugins to implement ?

I don't think we should support element plugins that don't use virtual
directories in BuildStream 2. However, outside the core repository
there might still be public plugins that haven't been migrated yet but
work fine with BuildStream master.

In my opinion we should migrate those before mandating plugins to use
virtual directories, also to validate that the virtual directory API is
sufficient. However, I don't think we need to block optional BuildBox
support on this. That said, it would be good to take care of this soon.

Cheers,
Jürg