[darcs-users] RFC: Third-party applications directory

[Pedro Melo]

Hi,

On Dec 31, 2005, at 12:13 AM, Alberto Bertogli wrote:

> I wanted to request for comments about the directory used for third- 
> party
> applications, like darcsweb.
>
> I've just applied a patch to support automatic repository description,
> which uses the file "_darcs/third_party/darcsweb/desc" to obtain it,
> instead of hardcoding it inside darcsweb's configuration.

+1...

My darcs2rss (in dire need of an update) had the same problem: where  
to put all the config options. I was moving in the direction of  
allowing a .darcs2rss in the root of the repo, side-by-side with _darcs.

Given that most of my needs will overlap with yours (things humans  
like, as repository description, project homepage, in my case  
darcsweb url...) I think we should also move some of the most common  
attributes into a "common" third-party.


> I don't know of any other darcs third-party application that stores  
> data
> in the _darcs directory, but it'd be nice if we all followed some  
> kind of
> convention. I'm happy with David's proposal, but before using it in  
> the
> wild, it'd be nice to have some feedback.

My suggestion:

  - _darcs/third_party is the base for all this;
  - BASE/common can have common attributes to all applications. We  
could have a wiki page as the "official" spec. Some of the attributes  
would include:
    - description: one line short description of the repo, plain-text;
    - abstract: longer description of the project. The first line can  
be a "Content-type: MIME\n\n". If not present assume text/plain;
    - project_homepage: an URL
    - authors (?): list of authors? Different from owner/author of  
the repo sometimes.
  - BASE/app_name: you own private variables.

The only thing I don't have a clear view on is if this directory  
should be version-controled or not. At first I though it should. It  
would make defining common parameters for all copies of the repo very  
simple. But sometimes I want my parameters to be diferent from the  
repo standard...

Best regards,
--
Pedro Melo
JID: melo at simplicidade.org