[Zope] A few questions...

2005-01-25 Thread Joel Aelwyn
[ Mail-Followup-To set; please *do* Cc me, as I do not currently  ]
[ subscribe to the -python list, though it appears to be the proper place ]
[ for Zope discussions, at least from what I can find in the archives.]
[ Please redirect me if somewhere else is more appropriate.   ]

So I have relatively recently taken over a Zope package, and while it is
now in (basically) good shape, there are a couple of technical points I
want to clear up to make sure I'm doing it right, since what I can find on
the mailing list archives isn't entirely conclusive.

1) Is it proper (assuming that the package works under both Zope 2.6 and
   Zope 2.7) to Depend on 'zope | zope2.7'? It seems like it should be, but
   I wanted to double-check.

2) Usage of debconf templates. The debconf manual (and the maintainer)
   seem to think that every package which uses the shared Zope restart
   template needs to provide an identical copy. However, this seems
   fairly impractical; already, I have two i18n bugs requesting updates
   to the translation in my package, which was taken from the unstable
   Zope package at the time. Since there is a (reasonably) sane default
   behavior, if the db_get fails, and thus it isn't a huge problem if the
   template has not yet been installed (through various situations), is
   it really necessary for each Zope package to provide this, when the
   coordination for shared questions in separate-source packages is so
   painful?

Anyway, thanks for your time.
-- 
Joel Aelwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   ,''`.
 : :' :
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Re: [Zope] A few questions...

2005-01-26 Thread Joel Aelwyn
On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 10:13:04AM +0100, Fabio Tranchitella wrote:
> Il giorno mar, 25-01-2005 alle 15:33 -0700, Joel Aelwyn ha scritto:
> > [ Mail-Followup-To set; please *do* Cc me, as I do not currently  ]
> > [ subscribe to the -python list, though it appears to be the proper place ]
> > [ for Zope discussions, at least from what I can find in the archives.]
> > [ Please redirect me if somewhere else is more appropriate.   ]
> > 
> > So I have relatively recently taken over a Zope package, and while it is
> > now in (basically) good shape, there are a couple of technical points I
> > want to clear up to make sure I'm doing it right, since what I can find on
> > the mailing list archives isn't entirely conclusive.
> 
> I think the right place for your email is the mailing list of zope
> debian packages developers [1], but the list seems to be almost dead.

Allright.

> > 1) Is it proper (assuming that the package works under both Zope 2.6 and
> >Zope 2.7) to Depend on 'zope | zope2.7'? It seems like it should be, but
> >I wanted to double-check.
> 
> IMHO the dependency should be "zope2.7 | zope", so the newer version
> will be automatically installed if needed.

Hmmm. I got the (quite possibly mistaken) impression that the 'zope2.7'
package was intended as a temporary situation, rather than 'zope' being
permanently stuck at 2.6 and all future Zope packages adding a new source
package. I mean, I could see 'Zope3', given that a major revision is
allowed to break all sorts of things, but why split 2.7 into a separate
package?

> > 2) Usage of debconf templates. The debconf manual (and the maintainer)
> >seem to think that every package which uses the shared Zope restart
> >template needs to provide an identical copy. 
> 
> My opinion on this issue is that for zope packages you do not use the
> shared template, just read its value in debian/postinst. For this
> reason, you haven't (and you shouldn't) provide the template: you'll
> never ask the user for that question so providing the template have
> really no sense, this just create additional work for the translators.
> 
> Here an example from one of my packages:
> 
> $ cat zope-cmfphoto-0.5.0/debian/postinst | grep "shared/zope"
> db_get "shared/zope/restart" || true
> 
> If db_get fails (the package zope isn't installed, or the template
> hasn't been initialized, or something else) the "or true" prevents the
> maintainer script to return a bad exit code.

Believe me, I understand the rationale. My issue is that this rationale
isn't, formally, supported by debconf. So I guess I should CC it to the
debconf maintainer for clarification.

> So, why for the hell you provide the template in your package? :)

Solely because "that's the requirement according to the debconf manual
and maintainer".

> After this, I maintain a lot of zope packages. Packaging this type of
> software is quite easy, and often it is a repetitive job. For this
> reason I'd like to see a dh_zope debhelper script, so the packages 
> (at least the easy ones) could get rid of their templates and their
> maintainer scripts. I know that Luca De Vitis started working on it, 
> and I tried to mail him but I haven't received any answer so far. 
> His last upload to zope package is on 2004, February. Does anyone 
> know if he is still around?

No argument here; some sort of dh_zope would be very handy, given that most
of the "weird" bits of packaging I had to do were Zope specific (things
like symlinks to move static images out of /usr/lib, or dealing with the
debconf stuff) that could easily be wrapped up in a dh_zope utility.
-- 
Joel Aelwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   ,''`.
 : :' :
 `. `'
   `-


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