Re: [Help-smalltalk] Small proposal for packages

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 12/20/2010 11:07 AM, Gwenaël Casaccio wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just want to present some small extensions for packages:
>
> 1. Add extra meta information
> ======================
>
> A short description of the package, url of the project, and an icon
> these points would be useful for an ui in VisualGST.

Not sure about icons, but package, url and license/copyright would be 
very useful.

> I would like to make the difference between
> prereq packages and sub packages for instance Iliad would have iliad-more-....
> has a subpackage and swazoo has prereq.

Agreed.

> 2. Virtual packages
> ===============
>
> A virtual package would only contains prereq packages and
> sub packages. for instance It will be usefull for ui if you search
> iliad it will display iliad with priority and the other sub packages
> after.

That should be easy, just look for "*.xml" (* not being "packages") 
inside the package directory and parse those without the need for a 
.star wrapper.

> 3. add a reload message ;-)
> ==================

Easy enough.  Not guaranteed to work without atomic loading, though.

> 4. Load order
> ==========
>
> Something that's annoying with big packages is that we should
> put the files ordered with the inheritance order. A solution
> is too to a pass on the package and generate the right file loading
> order. But things remain complicated when you inherit from external
> packages and the other. All the suggestions/ideas are welcome ;)

That should be easily taken care of by PackageSource, since it basically 
disregards the existing source structure.

Paolo