Re: (Fwd) [PEAR] RE: [PEAR-DEV] dependencies and applications

On 21 Aug 2003 at 16:03, Jan Schneider wrote: > Zitat von Stefan Neufeind <stefan@neufeind.net>: > > > As mentioned earlier (but to put it a bit different): > > Maybe having pear/MDB/MDB.php for all 1.x-releases and from PEAR 1.3 > > on also have pear/MDB/1.0/MDB.php is fine. From PEAR 2.0 on we can > > issue the warning as outlined before it still pear/MDB/MDB.php is > > used. And from 2.5 or so we should finally abandone these warning- > > files as well. From 1.3 to 2.0 there would be enough time for every > > package and every programmer out there to update his programs to > > work without any warnings. And when 2.0 comes out there is still > > some time until 2.5 finally breaks BC completely. What's so bad > > about such a solution? > > Why not keep the current directory structure for all packages that > already are released and switch to a new > Package/VersionNumber/Package.php only for yet to be released packages > or new major versions. > > This way you won't break BC even if in three year you still have an > application from now depending on a package 1.0 while there is already > PEAR 3.5 and package 4.1 out. > > If you depend on a new major version / new package in your > application, you will use the new structure. No transition, no bc > breakage, no version conflicts. Another good idea, yes. But does this include that we encourage all maintainers to release a new major release that follows the new structure? I think that the packages itself should care about if they are installed in MDB/... or pear/MDB/2.0/... This could be handled by the installer. And I think it's possible to make the transition "smooth" (as stated in my previous mail). Meanwhile we could check if packages internally use relative or absolute paths for dependencies / includes and suggest to the maintainers to upgrade their packages. I'd volunteer to check packages and mail the maintainers. Stefan