[Zope-CMF] Re: GenericSetup: purging steps on new base profile

[yuppie]

Hi Florent!


Florent Guillaume wrote:
> yuppie wrote:
>>
>> I have to refine this statement: *For now* I don't want to go down 
>> that road. In the long run I think we have to keep track of applied 
>> profiles. That would help to make the setup tool more powerful and to 
>> implement features like reloading or uninstalling. But AFAICS doing 
>> this right requires a major refactoring and would come to late for CMF 
>> 1.6 or 2.0.
> 
> Major refactoring? I don't think so, at least not for storing the basic 
> information about which profiles are applied, which is a first step 
> toward more powerful features.

I guess we just have different expectations what "applied profiles" 
means. Of course we can maintain a list of profiles from which we 
imported all steps. But the fact a profile *was* once applied doesn't 
necessarily mean it *is* applied. We have no tools to keep track of 
partial imports and manual configuration changes. And we have no tools 
to inspect the current configuration and to compare it against a set of 
profiles.

Restoring the configuration from a snapshot makes the list of applied 
profiles useless, the currently necessary manual uninstall process can't 
be recorded.

>> I can see that this information might be useful, but it doesn't 
>> represent a state of the tool or the site. It has more the character 
>> of (sometimes incomplete) history information and I'd prefer to use 
>> the logging machinery for that.
> 
> It's not state per se, but it's information about what the administrator 
> did to the site. It has the character of history, yes, but needs to be 
> introspected by the tool to provide further features. Just logging the 
> info doesn't cut it.
> 
>> What about adding that information to the import logs and creating an 
>> import log for the initial site creation as well?
> 
> Logs aren't useful to implement better features.

Given the limitations of that information: Which features do you think 
this information should be used for?

> FWIW, while we're on the topic of GenericSetup, CPS now has a strong 
> need for extension profile dependencies and ordering. Or choice between 
> mandatory alternate extension profiles (like, choose which extension 
> profile will provide the authentication aspects of the portal). At some 
> point we'll have to spec out something and code it.

I have some ideas regarding the future of extension profiles. I hope 
I'll soon find time to outline my thoughts.


Cheers,

	Yuppie