Synaptic without broadband Internet

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On 2/14/06, John Nilsson <john at milsson.nu> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 14:43 -0200, Carlos Ribeiro wrote:
> > Suggestion: generate a XML file with all the upgrade information,
> > including the relevant links and the MD5 checksum.
>
> Better yet, a digitally signed list of MD5s.
>
> Why XML?
>

Disclaimer: I'm not a XML addict :-) I just believe that this is one
particular application where a XML file has some advantages. First of all,
being text-based, it can be made readable both by applications and by a
human user. By keeping it simple it will be easy just to open the XML file
in the browser, with all http references there. I want to avoid defining yet
another intermediate file format. I also want to avoid 'executable' kind of
stuff, be it a script, be it a binary for Windows; it gives me creeps.

Another possibility is to output a plain HTML file (which actually is a
particular case of XML). The idea, again, is to use as much of the
infrastructure that is already in place; the HTML file could contain human
readable instructions. By right-clicking on the links the user would be able
to download all the deb files; for Windows users, a download accelerator
could be used to do it automatically.

As for the alternatives, the Web service idea seems interesting, but I fear
its complexity. It requires a lot of stuff to be implemented to get it
working. A simple XML or HTML file could do a nice job of helping the user,
making the process semi-automatic (which is 'good enough' IMHO).

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com
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