As I think about this a little bit, it seems that drawing a little analogy between the linux kernel and modules used with the kernel might be an interesting way to think of our OpenSim evolution.
There is a core set of logic, somewhat analogous to a kernel. Then there are various modules of which some are in the kernel SVN and others are in forge.opensimulator.org and now other places. The trick may be to come up with a build/release procedure that we run once a month or so and start evolving ourselves into a bit more consistent schema. This sort of evolution brings more rigidity in development, so some folks will be advantaged and some dis-advantaged, as is always the case. But, I think it is worth considering and discussing. Charles Krinke ________________________________ From: Michael Cortez <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:51:46 PM Subject: [Opensim-dev] Suggestion for project organization. I'd like to make a suggestion about how the OpenSim project is setup in trunk for building and get some feedback from ya'll. Currently if a developer would like to work on a new module for OpenSim, they have to first decide if they want to work inside trunk (building their module along with OpenSim in the same build) or if they want to create a completely separate project that just links to the DLLs produced from OpenSim's trunk. I don't know about others, but I personally tend to want to build and debug using the entire trunk. So my new module experience is usually something along the following lines: * Checkout trunk * Prebuild * Load up the project in Visual Studio, add a new project, or simply add a new file to one of the existing projects (Core or Optional Modules) * Add any additional references to the existing or new project that are needed for my new code * Work on my code for a while. * Copy out the relevant files to my own separate code repository Then at some point I end up updating the checkout with latest trunk, running prebuild, load up the solution file and cuss because the extra bits I added for my project are no longer present in the solution (were overwritten by prebuild.) At this point I usually then go modify the huge (and growing) prebuild.xml file to add my own project in there, so it'll be generated along with the trunk projects each time I prebuild. I've also noticed a lot of feature creep of things into trunk of things that are really optional and not required for either building or running of OpenSim by a lot of people utilizing trunk -=- but they are things being worked on by the core developers and are definitely "nice to have" things. Here is my suggestion: 1) Create a new top level directory in at /trunk/OpenSimModules to contain individual module projects that are not required/core modules 2) Create an empty Modules directory at /trunk/OpenSim/Modules/ where nested SVN projects can be checked out to 3) Each module that is optional, and not truly required for every OpenSim instance can slowly be migrated into /trunk/OpenSimModules/ for example /trunk/OpenSimModules/FlotsamAssetCache -- each of these modules would have their own mini, self contained, prebuild included in their project directory 4) Patch prebuild so that it allows a wildcard to be specified in the include path, so the following would be valid: <? include file="modules/*/prebuild.xml" ?> [Note: I have a working hack/patch that would allow this] 5) Modify the main prebuild.xml file located at /trunk/OpenSim/prebuild.xml to use this new expanded include directive. To use the repository in this new configuration, you would first checkout a copy of trunk/OpenSim -- or a stable build of your choice -- you then look through the list of modules within trunk/OpenSimModules for modules that you would like to use with your OpenSim instance. You then do a nested checkout of those individual modules into your local working directory at /OpenSim/Modules/* {svn fully supports nested working copies like this.} You then run prebuild as normal, which will now scan the OpenSimModules directory and automatically add any found projects to the nant and Visual Studio solution/build files. You then run nant or open the Visual Studio solution file as normal. What does this accomplish? * It separates out optional modules so that we would be working in an environment that is more like a "base kernel" with "modules" that you add in to make distributions, aka the "Linux Distribution model." * Separating out all the non-required modules makes the core trunk/OpenSim code easier to understand by new developers. * This separation will also create a clear dividing line between what is "core" and what isn't * It will be easier to "drop-in" 3rd party modules that are not stored in trunk, for compilation and debugging. GForge projects could simply be directly checked out into the /OpenSim/Modules/ folder and would automatically be included during prebuild with no further configuration other then just running prebuild again. * All default builds of OpenSim directly out of trunk/OpenSim will be slim/light weight distributions because the optional stuff won't be there. * Individual modules could now be tagged and assigned version numbers. They are also separately checked out and updated, thus making it a lot easier to update individual modules from the main SVN repository without also pulling down updates to the core or other modules and vice'versa {for example if you know the latest AssetCacheX is broken, but you want to retrieve a core update, you can update core without also updating that particular cache.} The downsides? I could only think of two, so this is where I need the most feedback. The first being that it requires a little more effort on the part of developers because you have to do multiple SVN checkouts to get a "full featured" copy of OpenSim's source. The second being the migration of the existing code, and the inevitable discovery of some code that's too highly coupled to move and the re-factoring necessary to do so. Parting notes: I'd also suggest doing the same for all the Grid & Stand-alone related components, leaving only the bare essentials in trunk/OpenSim necessary to make a grid attached instance along with the core components needed by all modules and grid services. Thus we would have something like trunk/OpenSimServers or trunk/OpenSimServices where the grid services (Asset Server, User Server, etc) would be moved to, and they in-turn would be checked out into a trunk/OpenSim/Server/ directory. Thoughts, comments? -- Michael Cortez _______________________________________________ Opensim-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
_______________________________________________ Opensim-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
