[m-dev.] Libraries Idea

[Fergus Henderson]

On 20-Sep-1999, Warwick Harvey <wharvey at cs.monash.edu.au> 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?

It should search for `src/foo.m' files in the same search path
that it uses to search for `lib/$FULLARCH/libfoo.so'.

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

The source should be in ../../src.  However, the assumption in this question
is wrong -- the system would know the library name and the search path,
and it should use those to find the source, rather than first finding
the `.a' or `.so' and then using a relative path.

> 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.  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.

Good question.

Cheers,	
	Fergus.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh at 128.250.37.3        |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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