Subject: [alpine-devel] apk-tools idea: runtime plugins

From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 08:40:46 +0100

Other idea I have been thinking for some time: runtime plugins for apk-tools

What triggered this idea was that it would be nice to have a "real"
http/ftp downloader via curl or similar instead of fork/exec bb wget,
however, would not be nice to need libcurl in the initramfs image.

Some options:
We could have fetcher plugins. install /lib/apk/fetch_curl.so and
suddenly you have http and ftp support. Install /lib/apk/fetch_scp.so
and suddenly apk-tools understands scp:// repositories.

We could have applet plugins. Install /lib/apk/index.so and you get
'apk index' etc.

In future we could have /lib/apk/gtk-progress-bar.so etc...

Other option is that we could have only one plugin that have all the
"extended" stuff. So you have an apk-tools-base or similar, containing
only the basic functionallity, apk add, apk del and thats it. It could
use the busybox wget to fetch from http. Then you have another package
apk-tools-extras or similar that includes plugins for http download
via curl, includes the developer stuff like apk index etc.

In any case, it would be nice to be able have a framework for runtime plugins.

-- 
Natanael Copa

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From: Timo Teräs <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:46:55 +0200

> via curl, includes the developer stuff like apk index etc.

Might be an idea. However, I'm not currently sure what extra benefit
we get from using libcurl or wget. Splitting the applets to separate
modules might be useful though.

> In any case, it would be nice to be able have a framework for runtime plugins.

Yes, the more modular code we do, the easier it is to extend it later.

Patches are welcome :)

- Timo

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From: Nathan Angelacos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:47:35 -0500

>> and suddenly apk-tools understands scp:// repositories.

Does the extra functionality outweigh the complexity?

apk is still relatively simple.  simple is good.

> Yes, the more modular code we do, the easier it is to extend it later.

ok.. refactoring apk so that plugins are easier is one thing... but 
still not convinced on the value vs effort(code+bug reports) on the 
plugin part.

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