Distros, was: Release Tuscany Java SDO Milestone 2

[Jeremy Boynes <jb...@apache.org>]

On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:25 AM, kelvin goodson wrote:

> I had a combined samples and binary distro in RC2,  but the  
> discussion of
> that candidate (
> http://www.mail-archive.com/tuscany-dev%40ws.apache.org/msg09004.html)
> resulted in me creating a separate distribution.
>
> As to you parent directory suggestion,  I think it's a good stylistic
> proposal.  Currently the BUILDING.txt instructions tell you how to  
> overlay
> the samples on the source distro.  Given that I'm on RC5 I'd like  
> to propose
> that we take this suggestion on board for M3 unless there's enough  
> strength
> of feeling that I should take the time to restructure this now.   
> What do you
> think?

I don't think there's a "normal" or standard way to do this - each  
community is allowed to choose how it does these things. There's  
certainly no procedural issue here that warrants correction.

Personally, I prefer separate distributions with clear purpose (e.g. - 
bin, -samples, -javadoc, -src) as it allows me to choose what I  
download/install rather than always getting a kitchen-sick distro  
that quite often includes all sorts of stuff that I am not interested  
in. For example, I do not want samples, javadoc, or test code when  
installing something in a production environment.

I think distributing the samples separately is a really good idea.  
This is especially so when you are doing maintenance releases as the  
same set of samples should work against all "compatible" binary  
releases. The same goes for integration tests (and yes, I'd advocate  
a separate source distro for those). Keeping these separate from the  
binary distros helps prevents regressions in the mainline.

Things are different when you're intending to burn lots of bits shiny  
plastic for people to use as coasters, but even then everything seems  
to have an installer that lets people choose what they want to  
install (showing that users want the flexibility to choose). Thing  
is, we're not doing that - we're internet based with online  
distribution.

--
Jeremy

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Re: Distros, was: Release Tuscany Java SDO Milestone 2

[ant elder <an...@gmail.com>]

I guess I disagree, I think it is really nice to include at least some
pre-built samples with a binary distribution. You download and install the
thing and there's some sample that you can run that just works out of the
box with no messing about. Lots of projects do this, I think its really
helpful. You get that warm fuzzy feeling that you've done it right and from
then on you can base new stuff on the what you know works and when something
stops working go back and see whats different. People deploying something
into a production environment are likely savvy enough to be able to delete
some samples from a distro where as complete newbies may struggle to build
things from src with ant or maven right from the first minute. Also right
now we've probably not so many people deploying this into production ;) When
thats more likely we could have several distro's aimed at different types of
users.

   ...ant

On 10/18/06, Jeremy Boynes <jb...@apache.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:25 AM, kelvin goodson wrote:
>
> > I had a combined samples and binary distro in RC2,  but the
> > discussion of
> > that candidate (
> > http://www.mail-archive.com/tuscany-dev%40ws.apache.org/msg09004.html)
> > resulted in me creating a separate distribution.
> >
> > As to you parent directory suggestion,  I think it's a good stylistic
> > proposal.  Currently the BUILDING.txt instructions tell you how to
> > overlay
> > the samples on the source distro.  Given that I'm on RC5 I'd like
> > to propose
> > that we take this suggestion on board for M3 unless there's enough
> > strength
> > of feeling that I should take the time to restructure this now.
> > What do you
> > think?
>
> I don't think there's a "normal" or standard way to do this - each
> community is allowed to choose how it does these things. There's
> certainly no procedural issue here that warrants correction.
>
> Personally, I prefer separate distributions with clear purpose (e.g. -
> bin, -samples, -javadoc, -src) as it allows me to choose what I
> download/install rather than always getting a kitchen-sick distro
> that quite often includes all sorts of stuff that I am not interested
> in. For example, I do not want samples, javadoc, or test code when
> installing something in a production environment.
>
> I think distributing the samples separately is a really good idea.
> This is especially so when you are doing maintenance releases as the
> same set of samples should work against all "compatible" binary
> releases. The same goes for integration tests (and yes, I'd advocate
> a separate source distro for those). Keeping these separate from the
> binary distros helps prevents regressions in the mainline.
>
> Things are different when you're intending to burn lots of bits shiny
> plastic for people to use as coasters, but even then everything seems
> to have an installer that lets people choose what they want to
> install (showing that users want the flexibility to choose). Thing
> is, we're not doing that - we're internet based with online
> distribution.
>
> --
> Jeremy
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: tuscany-dev-unsubscribe@ws.apache.org
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>