On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 10:47:37PM +0100, David Garnier wrote: Hello, > > I'm thinking that Maven's repository could be used to distribute source > and documentation along with the binary of a library. For each version > of a library, the repository would contain the source code and the > documentation, in two different .jar files. I browsed the archive and I > don't think this idea surfaced before. > > This would enable several interesting features: > > * Not having to hunt around for the source or the documentation of a > library when a problem arises. Personally, I try to keep around the > source and the documentation of each library I use in a project. > Managing this directory is time-consuming compared to Maven's > repository.
The POM keeps the url, site address, cvs, etc. of the project, so I'd rather put a pointer there to the actual source distribution instead of copying everything to ibiblio. Something like "maven get-source" could download it from it's _original_ location, an put it in your local repository. "maven get-cvs" or something would download the source from the cvs, for instance. For this, we need to have each project's POM on the repository (a few kbs). > > * Source-level debugging for libraries: many IDEs allow you to attach a > source archive to a library, so you can debug directly in its source. > Eclipse, JBuilder and Netbeans can do it, so I guess that the others can > do it too. Their respective plugins could be modified to automatically > add the source to their configuration files when they are generated by > Maven. For anyone using the command-line, there are numerous tools that > can mount a jar file as a file system (like Konqueror). This is a nice feature. Whether we get it from ibiblio or the original source is irrelevant, IMHO. > > * Pretty-printed version of the source of each library in the web site. > Probably fairly intensive for big projects,but I think that it is worth > it. Each project should be responsible for its source and docs, and those should go on _its_ website, IMHO. > > Various issues I can think of: > > * The definition of what constitues the documentation can vary widly > from project to project. In many cases, the documentation is a set of > webpages, PDFs, .doc files and many other artifacts. Furthermore, the > copyrights of theses pieces aren't always very clear. But there is at > least one piece of documentation that is consistent across projects: > Javadocs, so let starts with that. Each "mavenized" project can put that for free on its generated website, even the whole docs and not only the > > * Bigger administrative overhead due to the new files. That's for sure !! If you look at the archive for "jar request", you'll see that having the libs uploaded to ibiblio is not something trivial until the admin app is out. Add to that the source and the docs, and imagine what it gives you! > > * Increases the bandwitdh used at ibiblio.org. I don't know if it's a > big problem or not. This _IS_ a big problem. For instance, I use Maven on a Gentoo Linux distribution. Gentoo uses a global repository to download and install softwares automagically (like Debian). Gentoo's main repository lives at ibiblio as well. When gcc-3.2.1 and kde-3.1 went out, the download rates reached an unusable state (0.1 kbps, when it wasn't a timeout). This affected both Gentoo and Maven. Bandwidth is something that I hate to waste. If each project stores its docs and sources, the bandwidth need is divided in as many places, and ibiblio is safe! > > * Adding the files to the existing libraries would be a big job, and > this can hardly be delegated to anyone because of the trust issue. > However, since the files won't be executed, this is a little less of an > issue. > > Of course this feature would be optional, activated by an option in the > <dependency> section of each library. > > Now if you've read through this entire post, you can probably tell if > this a just a pipe dream for some reason I overlooked, or if it is > possible. It _IS_ possible, but I'm -1 on it. I would like Maven to be a "light" tool. Having a repository which contains the libraries is a GREAT thing, but we shouldn't use it to store otherwise present docs and sources, IMHO. I'd rather have a cvs repository of POMs, which would store all the POMs of the mavenized projects. This way, we could get all the infos we need from a single place. Dreamers (as I am) can imagine a tool using those infos. (hint: have a look at Gentoo Linux's Portage tree, and its associated "emerge" tool: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-manual.xml http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-user.xml) Cheers, St�phane --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
