> -----Original Message----- > From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bayard@;generationjava.com] > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 5:04 PM > To: Steven Caswell > Cc: 'Henri Yandell' > Subject: RE: installing jakarta code Was: using commons > components and logging > > > > > On Fri, 8 Nov 2002, Steven Caswell wrote: > > > Confused the user how? > > > > I guess I don't understand how using a library like lang can cause > > heartburn for a project like Collections. I've never had a problem > > adding another jar to the classpath. Seems to me that the "user" > > (which, we should keep in mind, are supposedly intelligent > developers) > > should easily understand an additional dependency. As long as it is > > documented in a clear manner. > > Maybe that's the nub. Without really sitting down with users > to find out why they didn't install XXX library, it's hard to > tell. But I can quite happily goto the Jakarta front page, > click on a news item or click on Binary Releases, and > download the zip without realising.
That is a good point. I've had on blinders thinking more along the lines of the initial installation of a project, but your point About getting a later release is well taken. Unless I explicitly look at the docs, I may miss an important dependency. And today Maven doesn't really help this situation. > > Especially as I expect to have an INSTALL.txt or README.txt > [or html] which tells me what I need. We tend to put it on > the website, which a lot of people probably don't bother to check. > > So, maybe Maven could be generating out an INSTALL.txt as > part of its build or some such. Or maybe the current download > method of using the default Apache directory is wrong, we > need a lot of index.html's throughout the build/ directory. Could get real messy. > > Or we have an xml file in the releases directory called > requires.xml which an Apache module reads, shows a custom > Apache directory-page to remind people where to go to get the > requirements. > > I like that idea, it's not java, but neither is Jakarta's > site. What do you think? [Maven can still generate this xml > file out as part of the build] > I think this would be a reasonable short-term solution. I'd really Like to see things move toward a neutral (i.e., project-comprehension-tool-agnostic) xml description of dependencies that could be used by Maven or whatever to Figure out what else needs to be gotten and go get it. > Hen > > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:commons-dev-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:commons-dev-help@;jakarta.apache.org>
