Some random comments:
> So the idea is that the source code for all rules (apart from the "legacy"
> core and lang sets) remains in the sandbox dirs; in other words, there's
> no need to cut and paste and move around rules when they're "promoted"
> from testing status, to live core status.
I'm not positive this is a good idea. Someone 'owning' a rule while it is
in development is one thing. Someone owning a rule that is publishable is
quite something else. What if 'someone' gets hit by a car or goes to work
for MS and stops maintaining 'their' rules?
What if (and this is very probable) someone *else* wants to modify a
published rule to improve it, rename it for consistancy, or delete it
because it is no longer useful? Or any of a number of reasons for
collaborative software development rather than private contributions to a
common cause?
I think in my ideal world, there would be some number of 'published rules
files' with known names (perhaps that reflect the contents as SARE does),
and published rules get directed to one of these files. Or a new file gets
created for some new rules, and possibly some old rulles get moved into it
from previous files, if that gives a better organization a month down the
line.
That should make make happy, since things would seldom change, and the rules
could be expected to be valid and stable.
For testing, it should come from sandboxes, and ideally
a) the file names would be [nn_]arbitrary_name.cf
b) duplicate names from various sandboxes would NOT step on each other in
testing
c) they can get tested when the owner believes they are ready for testing
d) they can get promoted to published status when some number of
people/criteria agree
If "arbitrary name.cf" is too hard fixed names could be used for testing.
But there is a lot of advantage to arbitrary and disposable names here.
Loren
