Jack Schwartz wrote: > Hi Dave. > > Thanks for your comments. > > On 05/11/09 12:08, Dave Miner wrote: >> Jack Schwartz wrote: >>> Hi everyone. >>> >>> Minutes from this meeting are posted at: >>> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/caiman/auto_install/AI_mtg/Minutes/XML_parser_rework_minutes_090507.txt >>> >>> >>> >> I don't understand what's meant by the "carries a lot of information" >> portion of the below. Carrying a lot of information isn't inherently >> a problem, so what's the real problem being hinted at? >> >>> 2) Current AI manifests are not easy to use. >>> - fragmented, could be better organized, carries a lot of >>> information. > Carrying lots of information isn't a problem if that information is well > organized. Combined with the file being fragmented and not organized as > well as it could, carrying a lot of information makes the file harder to > read. > > I'll drop the "carries a lot of information" part. >>> - We decided that changing from XML is out of scope and off the >>> table. >>> >> Additionally, I'd suggest some alteration of the below: >> >>> 3) AI manifests need to be forward and backward compatible between >>> builds. >>> - Old manifest to work on new build >>> - Have old build recognize new manifests and fail in a >>> user-friendly way >> I think it would be more general to say that "A given version of the >> automated installer must be able to recognize and gracefully fail when >> presented with a manifest with which it is not compatible." The >> specific old/new statements above seem a little too restrictive and >> would potentially lead to solutions which are insufficiently flexible >> for the product's future evolution. > Well, I could take your wording (and I'd like to), but... > > Reading between the lines here, are you suggesting that we need to > support that a manifest of a given version works with both up-revved and > down-revved installers? >
No, I wasn't suggesting that. The specific wording was chosen in an attempt to avoid that implication. > If that's the case then we should make that as part of the problem > statement as it's more complete. (This is assuming that now is the time > to completely define the problem.) The other way implies that there may > be manifest versions which won't work with a given installer version. > This way says all manifest versions will work with any installer version. > > What's your opinion on this? > There is no requirement that everything work with everything. Do you think such is even possible here? My opinion is that we desire to maintain compatibility of manifests moving forward, but should assume there will be an incompatible change required at some point and that the installer should fail gracefully when presented with one. That requires that the installer be able to differentiate between compatible and incompatible manifests. Dave
