[RFC] Automatic Plugin Suggestion

[Martin Albisetti]

On Feb 18, 2008 2:15 AM, Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> wrote:
> I'd like to see a clear separation into two interfaces, providers for
> which can be registered separately (or together):
>
> 1- A lookup provider tells you what plugin offers a given topic,
> command, format, etc, and outputs the plugin name (and possibly a dict
> of other info, like a version)
> 2- An install provider that takes a plugin name, and either installs
> it, or tells you how to.
>
> We can provide default implementations of both in bzrlib which:
>
> - look up plugins by consulting a static table in the source tree,
> which we can update through the usual BB/pqm mechanism
> - just prints a message asking people to install the plugin from the
> bzr web page

Perfect, I'll refactor a bit to fit this model.


> Then they can evolve in different directions.  We can try, if desired,
> doing lookups from the net, or by consulting a list of plugins
> packaged for a particular system.  Or you can take the default plugin
> suggestion and install it by apt or some other mechanism.

There are many approaches for this bit, maybe it's worth waiting til
the sprint to discuss the plugin installation method?


> I just skimmed your patch and haven't read it properly yet.  Can I ask
> that you please take the spec from the wiki and include it in the
> patch, so that we have something in the developer documentation
> explaining how this works, and how it will work in future.

Where exactly would I add this in the patch?
Under docs/en/developers/?


Thanks for all the input  :)


Martin