>>>>> "Oyvind" == =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=D8yvind Harboe?= <ISO-8859-1> writes:
Oyvind> How about splitting the eCos repository?
Oyvind> - It would help to market the support for multiple
Oyvind> repositories. I've seen a lot of messy maintainence due to
Oyvind> the lack of this knowledge.
Oyvind> - It would reduce the size of the eCos repository that 90%
Oyvind> use.
Oyvind> Something like:
Oyvind> - eCos core. Up to and including architecture HAL's
Oyvind> - eCos devboard. Contains all the HAL's for development boards.
Oyvind> - eCos highlevel/net. All high level(many files) stuff like net,
Oyvind> microwindows, etc. goes
Oyvind> - eCos legacy.
Oyvind> 1 eCos repository is too little, 10 is too many. :-)
Oyvind> The user would then have to either use a development board
Oyvind> HAL as-is or create his own eCos repository, probably
Oyvind> duplicating & modifying an existing HAL.
I don't think so - at least not for some time.
For most people having a single repository makes life simpler.
Installation is easier, you just need the one directory tree rather
than several. The ECOS_REPOSITORY environment variable is simpler,
with just one entry, so there is much less to worry about if that
variable gets corrupted somehow or if one of the directories gets
moved around for some reason. The single tree is what is documented,
not just in our documentation which we can change (given appropriate
effort) but also in other works like the Massa book. We do not have
problems with novice users complaining on ecos-discuss that they
cannot find e.g. microwindows because they have not installed or
checked out some optional repository. Sure, most eCos users will not
be interested in microwindows but why make life unnecessarily
complicated for the ones who are?
Yes, there are disadvantages. A single repository will contain lots of
stuff that any given developer won't need, wasting disk space. However
the average size of a hard disk is growing faster than the size of an
eCos repository so that problem is actually becoming less important
over time. Similarly bandwidth is becoming less of an issue.
Support for multiple repositories is great for experienced users. I
have about 20 different repositories at the moment, a mixture of
branches and development trees, and my ECOS_REPOSITORY path has six
entries. However I see no reason for inflicting multiple repositories
on novice users. They have enough to learn as it is.
Bart
--
Bart Veer eCos Configuration Architect
http://www.ecoscentric.com/ The eCos and RedBoot experts
--
Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos
and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss
