[development] One core, many distributions

[Adrian Rossouw]

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On 19 Nov 2005, at 8:31 PM, Jose A. Reyero wrote:

> Well, I was writing this as a reply to a reply to the previous
> 'Encouraging collaboration' thread, but it's grown too big, so sorry,
> but I want to open a new thread.
>
> A "great developer platform" is how I see Drupal, and I'm sure most of
> the developers too. But the thing is: we need some focus, some targets
> to agree on.

The install system makes provisions for this.

You can create virtual packages, which have no actual modules / code  
of their
own except for depending on other packages and having some configuration
and possibly an installation wizard.

When I said that the forms api is a key component of the install  
system, I wasn't joking.

The new form api (only in 4.8 though. the 4.7 forms api is only phase  
one)
will allow us to record macros, (ie: record all the forms you fill  
in), and create install profiles
programmatically. It will also be possible to auto-create  
configuration wizards from
these recorded macros, as wizards are just macros that have  
configurable values.

I have a feeling we might even be able to clear up some of our menu  
mess.

> Just as an example -and I have nothing against forum module: At some
> point, we are duplicating the taxonomy interface to handle a forum
> specific vocabulary. Then, this causes some bug -like this one, again
> just an example: http://drupal.org/node/24274 -, and then we have a
> *core bug*, module specific, but as it is a core module,  this one   
> has
> the same importance -in the bug tracking system- as any other critical
> bug -like a basic API not working properly.
I would like to see the relationship API take over forum, taxonomy  
and book.
So we have one system instead of all these disparate implementations  
of the same thing.

The same with the aggregator module which implements it's own node  
system,
and taxonomy.

The same with the project module which implements it's own comment  
system
and taxonomy system.

Whenever we need to implement something like this, it means our core  
system isn't
flexible enough.

And you have it wrong.

The Drupal mantra is 'we should write an API for that'



> But, anyway, that's an old idea. Just look at Linux.... Could you
> install 'Linux' --properly understood as the core OS- and pretend you
> have a nice OS ready to play with your computer?

I'd love to see core only be a handful of modules, but I really don't  
see it being an option before
the install system is finished. Once 4.7 is out, I'm going to be  
putting together the DEP's for the
rest of the install system, so we can discuss them (I actually have  
started writing my first DEP, it's
just kind of hard since I don't have a format to follow, I am just  
playing it all by ear.)



- --
Adrian Rossouw
Drupal developer and Bryght Guy
http://drupal.org | http://bryght.com


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