Re: Bundles in Agora

[c.]

On 28 Oct 2012, at 08:09, Wendy Liu wrote:

> The impression I got from Jordi was that Agora Octave was meant to be a 
> code-sharing site like Bitbucket/Github/Sourceforge but with a very low 
> barrier to entry. So, similar to all the VCS-backed code-sharing sites out 
> there, only without a VCS, to make it easier for people who aren't 
> comfortable with them to use the site. So I pretty much am trying to 
> replicate certain features of VCSes (or at least, VCS-backed code-sharing 
> sites), but the intention is to do so without actually making the user use a 
> version control system. It's not possible to just use the web interfaces 
> themselves, because Agora is meant to be more than simply a web interface to 
> a VCS, and even using certain parts of the web interfaces would be difficult 
> due to language/dependency/other integration issues. (The plan is to get 
> Mercurial integration working eventually, so that versions are tracked 
> transparently with hg, without users having to ever create a repository or 
> commit anything themselves, but this hasn't been done yet.)
> 
> As for editing bundles: I mentioned earlier in the thread that I would be 
> scrapping this feature, based on feedback suggesting that it would not be a 
> good idea. So users do have to prepare a new version of the bundle to update 
> it, rather than editing individual files. Hopefully that clears things up.

Wendy,

OK, if editing is taken out, just being able to browse files can really do no 
harm, so as it is already there no need to remove it.

As for the overall design I think the original plan [1,2] was to keep things 
more separate:

1) A "low barrier" part, consisting of pasted snippets and single files or 
bundles which can be developed independently, 
without use of a VCS or any other collaboation tool, and then are just 
distributed on Agora like on CPAN or CTAN.

2) A "high priority" part similar to the current Octave Forge, but more closely 
connected with Octave core, composed of 
formatted bundles developed cooperatively using a VCS (most probably mercurial 
to match Octave-core).

Part 2) is what the "Forge" section of Agora.

Part 1) does not need any code development ttols, just an interface to upload 
files and comment on them.
Part 2) will use Mercurial.

So, as I see it, NO, you do not need to work on implementing a new web based 
VCS. 
I do encourage others to comment on this, Jordi, Carnë?

Actually it seems to me that you are very close to completing part 1) while 
part 
2) could just be implemented quickly as an interface to savannah. 

So we could start using Agora for real stuff quite soon if you go this way, 
otherwise it might be a long while before it ever goes prime-time and there is 
a risk
that if the initial momentum is lost it may vanish in the background and die 
out.

Any comments anyone?

c.


[1] http://octave-forge.blogspot.it/2012/08/octconf2012-agora-and-pkg.html
[2] http://planet.octave.org/octconf2012/agora.pdf