As discussed elsewhere, Fabio (with some periodic input from myself) has been working to define NuGet packaging structures for NH3.x.
As presently designed, the packaging structure for NH3.x looks like this (*generalized* so you get the idea; this is NOT exactly their full contents, but an abstract of how they are structured): ******** Package: NHibernate Semantic Contents: the nhibernate.dll assembly Dependencies: none ******** Package: NHibernate.Castle Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for Castle Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the Castle dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Package: NHibernate.LinFu Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for LinFu Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the LinFu dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Package: NHibernate.Spring Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for Spring.NET Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the Spring.NET dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Essentially, the "Nhibernate" package is 'bare' NH3.x with no ProxyFactoryFactory included and is intended only to be used as a 'reference package' for other packages (either created by NH team or otherwise) that for any particular reason do not want/need any of the specific ProxyFactoryFactory packages. The design intent here was that the 'typical' NH adopter would select one of the "Nhibernate.<proxyfactory>" packages that was to their liking. While this approach would seem to achieve this goal, its not without its limitations, as many have pointed out in various venues: - naming the 'bare' (proxy-less) package simply "NHibernate" is potentially confusing as its 'generic' name increases the likelihood that it will be selected by a high percentage of adopters unaware of the nuances of needing to select one of the higher-level (ProxyFactoryFactory) packages; this is likely to result in people adding this package in error and not ending up with a complete, fully-functional NH-based solution (and no clear indication to them as to why this is the case) - this approach requires the NH adopter to make a conscious decision when adding their desired package re: which ProxyFactoryFactory infrastructure they want to use; it has been suggested elsewhere that this represents an "implementation detail" within NH that the vast majority of NH adopters should not want/need to concern themselves with >From the beginning of the introduction of the ProxyFactoryFactory, NH has refrained from making any one of the ProxyFactoryFactory implementations 'the default' and has treated all proxy engines equally. If we choose to shield the user from this implementation detail in our packaging by providing a 'default' for the 'standard' NH package, then we need to decide which ProxyFactoryFactory implementation will be that default. At first glance, the logical choice seems to be the LinFu proxy engine since its the the lightest-weight of those available (because its narrowly-focused on being 'only' a dynamic proxy engine and is not also trying to be an IoC container at the same time). Because of its more narrow scope/feature set, its also probably the least-likely to version-collide with other assemblies in users' projects. However, since the Castle dynamic proxy engine is presently the only one of the several to support the 'full' set of NH features (e.g., lazy properties), this probably makes it the best choice as the 'default' ProxyFactoryFactory (at least until features like lazy-properties can be supported by the LinFu dynamic proxy). So I am proposing the following revision to the present packaging approach and asking for comment/feedback on this re-design: ******** Package: "NHibernate.Core" Semantic Contents: the nhibernate.dll assembly Dependencies: none ******** Package: NHibernate Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for Castle Dependencies: "NHibernate.Core", <the Castle dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Package: NHibernate.Castle Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for Castle Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the Castle dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Package: NHibernate.LinFu Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for LinFu Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the LinFu dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** Package: NHibernate.Spring Semantic Contents: the ProxyFactoryFactory for Spring.NET Dependencies: "NHibernate", <the Spring.NET dynamic proxy assembly(ies)> ******** This revised approach is intended to ameliorate most of the perceived shortcoming of the existing packaging design by: - using "NHibernate.Core" as the name of the 'bare' nh package; this (when present in the NuGet list alongside the new plain 'Nhibernate' package) should help to discourage users from inappropriately referencing it directly (fingers crossed here!) - making the 'plain' "NHibernate" package a fully-functional distribution that will "just work" for adopters (provided, of course, that they properly configure NH once adding the package <g>); its *hoped* that naming it just plain "NHibernate" will increase the chances that adopters will select it as the package to add (e.g., its name matches "what they were looking for") - still offering the original ProxyFactoryFactory-specific packages for those adopters 'more aware' of the pros and cons of their making a specific choice Before we proceed to make any of these modifications, we would like some feedback re: this planned approach in the following areas: 1. please comment on the proposed choice of Castle as the dynamic proxy engine for the 'default' NH package 2. please comment on the proposed new structure of package dependencies Thanks in advance, Steve Bohlen [email protected] http://blog.unhandled-exceptions.com http://twitter.com/sbohlen
