[m-dev.] Libraries Idea

[Peter Schachte]

On Mon, Sep 20, 1999 at 04:44:25PM +1000, Warwick Harvey wrote:
> With regard to Ralph's proposal, I have a number of concerns, which I think 
> should be addressed before taking things much further.
> 
> 1.  If the idea is to build grades lazily, and a library is missing in the 
> grade being used, how does the system know in which directory in the search 
> path the library belongs?

A config file.

> 2.  Assuming the system knows in which directory the library should go, how 
> does it know where to find the source for that library?

A config file.

> 3.  On a multi-user / shared installation, how does one assure that file 
> ownership and permissions are appropriate so that (a) anybody can cause a 
> new grade to be installed, (b) a grade installed by one user can be used by 
> another, and (c) no user can do malicious things to the installation.

An suid program?  What do TeX installations do so that generated fonts
can be shared?  This is basically the same problem.

> To a 
> lesser extent, one might also want to think about whether a user can 
> intentionally (or even unintentionally) fill up the disk with a plethora of 
> useless grades.

Sure.  But there are easier ways to fill up a disk, if that's what
they want to do.  You could even write a script to run periodically
and delete library file grades that haven't been used in a while.  You
couldn't really do that unless you had automatic library grade generation.

Anyway, I think the upside for disk space is much larger than the
downside because the default installation procedure could build only
the most commonly used grades for only the most commonly used library
modules.  Also, users won't be tempted to keep their own copies of the
libraries they need just to avoid having to deal with sysadmins.

> simply go to the appropriate directory and type
> 
> nice +19 mmake install MMAKEFLAGS=-j2 LIBGRADES='<list of grades I want>'
> 
> and that seems to work fine, and doesn't seem *too* much trouble (to me).  
> (Of course it's not so easy for the other users, since they have to get me 
> to do it if they have the same problem

That's the trouble.  In an (unusual :-) installation in which the
system administrators might be a bit busy, it might even take hours
:-) for them to get around to installing the needed grades.


-- 
Peter Schachte                     A free society is one where it is safe to
mailto:schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        be unpopular.
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/      -- Adlai Stevenson 
PGP: finger schachte at 128.250.37.3  
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