[packagekit] Things that need fixing

[Robin Norwood]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:21:02 +0100
Richard Hughes <hughsient at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 2008-02-26 at 14:02 -0500, Robin Norwood wrote:
> > This seems a little funny to me for some reason.  I think it's
> > because of my background with webapps - for instance, whenever you
> > see someone putting a bunch of separated values in a single column
> > in a DB table, you know they're Doing It Wrong.  OTOH, it's nice to
> > be able to pass additional data around without breaking the API...
> 
> Sure, it's just the same stuff we pass as a filter. We could do the
> same as an "as" signature - it's just less hassle to pass as a well
> formed string. I guess you've got the draw the line somewhere between
> correctness and API ease of use.

You're probably right, that sort of thing just sets of warning bells
for me.  I'll see if I can get that today.

> > Don't tell him, you'll just encourage him.  I think we should add
> > checkboxes For Now, until someone figures out how to do it better in
> > various backends.  Then we can add the 'do the right thing' button.
> 
> Well, DTRT should be done in UpdateSystem.

Yeah.  And send error signals for the packages removed from the
transaction.  Tim L. or one of the other yum guys probably knows better
than I how feasible DTRT is with yum's API.  I'm guessing the standard
case of 'update of LibFoo-X.Y from repo Bar breaks because app Blinky
requires LibFoo=X-1.0' is fairly easy, but edge cases devolve into a
horrible mess very quickly.

> > I don't like this at all.  The backend is going to need to handle
> > each of the possible cases differently, and might not (yet) support
> > a given action over multiple packages.  With something generic like
> > this, there's no way to say "I support upgrading, or installing a
> > bunch of packages, but not downgrading or removing" for instance.
> 
> Sure, valid point.

So you think separate UpdatePackages, InstallPackages, RemovePackages
calls?  Maybe just change *Package -> *Packages and just send a single
package to make things work like they do now?

-RN

-- 
Robin Norwood
Red Hat, Inc.

"The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone."
-Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching