[GRASS-dev] GRASS extensions/addons mismatch

[Hamish]

Martin wrote:
> generally speaking I agree. Unfortunately there is one big
> BUT.
> 
> There are many new features which have been implemented in
> `gui/script/g.extensions.py`
>
> Extra flags:

(which may be nice, but none of which are critical for use)


> When listing extension it reads metafile from the remote
> server - http://grass.osgeo.org/addons/grass6.xml.
> Bash script just parses `index.html` (wget from SVN).

(reading xml is faster and gives you more info, but both still give a
usable result)


> Python version can install
> extensions on Windows, Bash script not.

this is the major reason for not dropping the wxPy version from 6.x

 
> There was discussion about replacing g.extension (bash script) by
> Python version in GRASS 6. Hamish was strictly against that.

And I very much still am. The question is more for the python version
to justify its inclusion in 6.x; the bourne script one must remain for
core use. (python is not a required runtime dependency of 6.x, and
universal python script support in 6.x remains undeveloped)


> I personally think that g.extension is too much complicated
> module to be a Bash script.

it depends on how far much further you want to extend it; IMO the g.ext.sh
script is near feature complete already, for what it is supposed to do,
and not so complicated.  (see r.in.wms for that)

for the tasks of running "make" and moving files about, a shell script
is IMNSHO the absolute best tool for the job, as the job is ultimately
running a series of shell commands, and nothing is better for that than
simply running a series of shell commands.

for downloading and parsing XML, yeah you probably want a python script
for that, but I never suggested that should be added to the bourne shell
version.  (n.b. `xml2` for shell scripts is actually quite nice, once you
get past the missing documentation)


> I don't want to re-open this discussion,

me neither, both variants work for what they are each trying to do and
where they are used; let's move on.


Hamish