Re: making FAM a required dependency

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On 30 Sep 2002, James Willcox wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> gnome-vfs supports the monitoring of local files through FAM.  This is a
> great feature, but currently it's not one we can depend on, since FAM
> support is optional.  Consequently, if you want things to work as
> expected, you have to handle the situation where monitoring isn't
> supported by implementing your own monitoring stuff.  I see at least 2
> ways to fix this problem.
> 
> 1)  Make FAM a required dependency for gnome-vfs
> 
> 2)  Implement a fallback monitoring impl. in gnome-vfs when FAM isn't
> available.  (only for local files)
> 
> IMHO, 1) is the best solution, assuming that FAM works on all the
> platforms we plan to support.

As a maintainer of FAM in Red Hat i must say i don't like this. FAM is a 
fraigile and crappy piece of code. It has various unwanted dependencies 
and is prone to failure. I've long wanted to do some sort rewrite that 
was more desktop-oriented, but i've never had time.

Do we really need to provide non-optional monitoring in gnome-vfs? It will 
always be optional for non-local filesystems anyway. I see file 
notification as a nice extra, but given its issues its something I do not 
want us to rely on.

-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a one-legged gay paranormal investigator living undercover at Ringling 
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