Re: Introducing NewStuffManager

[Tom Tromey <tromey redhat com>]

>>>>> "Sebastian" == Sebastian Pölsterl <marduk k-d-w org> writes:

Sebastian> I'm posting this here to encourage you to read my
Sebastian> presentation at
Sebastian> http://www.k-d-w.org/clipboard/NewStuffManager/ and to find
Sebastian> out what you are expecting from such an application.

I've got a few questions about it.  I've tried to read through all the
available info -- forgive me if I missed something.

First, you may want to read through the JNLP spec[1] for ideas.  JNLP
is more or less the equivalent java technology, though a bit more
application-centric.

What happens if a distro wants to ship a plugin?  I'm specifically
thinking about upgrades and versioning, and making sure the manager
does the right thing.  E.g., consider this scenario: the distro ships
a plugin (version 1), then the user updates from the update site
(version 2) into his home directory, and then the OS itself is
upgraded, pulling in version 3.  (If this sounds far-fetched... I've
done this multiple times with Eclipse plugins on Fedora.)

Is there any way for a plugin to express its requirements?  Maybe it
needs other plugins, or specific versions of things, or ... your idea
here.  This sort of thing is a staple of other plugin management
environments.  (Eclipse for sure, which goes the overkill route.  JNLP
has a lighter touch, basically allowing re-use via URLs, though having
a tag to indicate the required JRE version.)

How does this relate to python eggs[2]?  And if it doesn't, why not?
It seems to me that if there's an upstream project that handles a lot
of this, then it would be beneficial to simply re-use it.


Anyway, I think the idea as a whole is a pretty good one.

Tom

[1] http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/1.2/docs/developersguide.html

[2] http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi