[PATCH] better python plugins (well, better IMHO)

[Lalo Martins]

And so says Aaron Bentley on 06/13/2005 01:20 AM...
> John Arbash Meinel wrote:
>>> Aaron Bentley wrote:
> I just thought it was unbelievably hypocritical for Lalo to say
> searching subdirectories would slow down startup while introducing a
> system guaranteed to slow down startup much more significantly.

And I on the other hand think you're being unbelievably rude.  Let's
keep the list flamefest-free, we've been doing quite well up to now and
I surely don't want to be involved in the first one.

I fully realize a full plugin system slows down startup.  But that's how
good plugin systems are.  Either you have or you don't; half-baked
systems are too much baggage for insufficient benefit.

Also, I don't think you read John's patch (which was merged already).
He *DOES* load all plugins on startup anyway, just he does in bzr
startup rather than bzrlib startup.  With his patch, your new command
doesn't need to reside in a module with the same name as the command;
all modules in the plugin path are loaded and scrutinized for objects
that have names beginning with 'cmd_' and are subclasses of Command.  So
the overhead is slightly *bigger* than my version.

So next time you feel like flaming, do your homework first.  You are one
of the best and most valuable hackers in this community; so I see no
benefit to the community at large in engaging on flamefest with you.

> I'm still not convinced that everything in the system should be made 
> pluggable.  You can easily run into situations where defective
> plugins cause data loss, and since it's not obvious that code that
> caused the data loss came from a plugin, bzr could well be blamed,
> just as Windows is often blamed for flaws in third-party drivers.

That's possibly a good point; but I think plugins are a great tool for a
system that is in early development like bazaar-ng is now.  It allows
more agile experimentation.  Later when it's more stable I would happily
agree to restrict it more.

best,
                                               Lalo Martins
--
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       summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
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