Re: [Vala] Vala and side by side execution

[Carl <name is carl gmail com>]

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Luca Bruno <lethalman88 gmail com> wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Carl <name is carl gmail com> wrote:
>
> > To the point I'm no sure which vapi files I run :)
> > So I can't have 0.13.1 and 0.13.3 running by side by side because the two
> > releases share the same vapi files.
>
> Same api version is not meant to be parallel installable, only e.g. 0.12 (=
> 0.11) and 0.14 (= 0.13).

Is it a constraint due the Linux packaging system ?
So far the use cases for side by side installation are :
   - checking for regression testing between releases
   - doing benchmarking
   - simply evaluating an update
   - developing the new release while not messing with the system

As you may know, on a windows box, the user can choose to install the
application wherever she wants.
So by choosing to install vala 0.13.1 in "c:\program files\vala\0.13.1"
(god, how  'Program Files' is a lame choice of words) and vala 0.13.3 in
"C:\Prog...\vala\0.13.3" you end up with a messed up 0.13.1 release !

For a windows user, side by side execution is more or less expected :
different installation folders, different flavors of your program. And
everything is supposed to work (but sometimes, a little pray can help) :)

(I don't know about OSX)


> 1) Are the vapi meant to be located in a user related folder ? They didn't
> > strike me as being configuration, nor personal to the user. Am I missing
> > something ?
>
> They are meant to be located in system wide folders.

As all compilation resources on Linux ?


> > 2) Couldn't we enable side by side execution for minor releases (for
> > example, by naming the vapi folder "vala-0.13.3" instead of "vala-0-14",
> > or
> > by having it in the application folder, not shared in the user folder) ?
> > What do you think about it ?
>
> What's the reason?
Well, as stated above, the benefits are easing up
testing/benchmarking/release qualification...

And it's a nice feature :)
Nice for testers, for developers and for end-users (who ends up being
developers too :).

Well, the purpose of my message was just a reflexion on how to offer the
best user experience for vala.
Doing tests, I noted this issue with the current windows installation and
wanted to get some feedback from you guys.
I know that I want this problem dealt with for my next release of vala for
windows, and I was wondering how things were done on other platforms.

Cheers,
Carl


> --
> www.debian.org - The Universal Operating System