Re: UML plugin...

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Tim Ellis wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Aug 2002 13:22:22 +0100 (BST)
> Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie> wrote:
>
> > is there a way to make dia more inclusive, to make it obvious that these
> > programs are essentially part of dia too?
>
> <snip>...
>
> > and as a result focus new
> > people to use what is available and avoid the NIH Syndrome (not invented
> > here).   Do distributions ship Dia with these valuable add-ons? if not
> > why not?
>
> My experience tells me usually because it's more work, and most
> maintainers aren't paid a fulltime salary to do this anyway. Depends on
> the maintainer. Usually if you're too hard-nosed about adding lots of
> extra work, the maintainer says one of two things: "Fork it if you care
> so much" or "Oh, I'd be happy if you took over the maintainer position
> for me!"



> > Is there a package available with Dia and all the bells and whistles
> > (xslt, autodia, tediasql, etc) in a fairly easy to install static build?
>
> The simplest (technical) solution seems to me to be: include such extras
> as optional dependencies to Dia (does RPM/.deb have such functionality?)

I know dpkg has 'recommended' packages, but you don't really notice them if
you just apt-get install.  I believe RPM has somethine similar.

> so that Manrake/Redhat/Debian (etc...) distros could install these other
> tools, then adding functionality to Dia to allow it to recognise the
> installed-status of these other tools and have hooks to them(in the case
> of tedia2sql, a save/exec combo) and thus use them if installed.

The nice thing about the Dia plugin system is that you don't actually have
to tell Dia about the plugins, you can just put them in the right
directory, and they're picked up automagically.  Thus, that part of
installation is easy.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?