Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 02:02:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org>
To: new-httpd@apache.org
Subject: Re: Suggestion: shtool
In-Reply-To: <199904250124.VAA05104@devsys.jaguNET.com>
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On Sat, 24 Apr 1999, Jim Jagielski wrote:
> Ben Hyde wrote:
> > 
> > In this big picture (at least the one I'm looking at
> > this morning) this kind of sawing off parts of Apache,
> > making them stand along modules, would be a very
> > good thing.  It letting us be more experimental about
> > how to bundle up things.
> 
> I agree. Packaging the scripts in src/helpers as the Apache Porting
> Tools "project" is a great idea. Just as the ideal is that some
> code is usable outside of Apache, we should do the same for the
> scripts that Apache uses.

I like the idea as well, but there's a significant caveat: the interfaces
between projects becomes *much* more difficult to change, because the
dependencies crosses projects.  For example, how much have these scripts
(or their equivalents) changed since 1.3.0?  If they were separate
projects, with different release schedules, would different releases of
Apache had to rely on different releases of APtools?  If this interface,
essentially an API, isn't something we could specify cleanly and
confidently, then we shouldn't break it out into a separate project yet.
If it is, then no problem.

I agree with the others who don't want a dependency in the build process
on scripts maintained outside the Apache group.  Yes, I'm aware that there
are dependencies, like /bin/sh and Perl, but this space is much less
mature than the ones those tools cover.

	Brian