installation paths, option definition (was: QofBackend changes in next commit)

[Derek Atkins]

Neil,

Quoting Neil Williams <linux at codehelp.co.uk>:

> On Friday 02 September 2005 3:22 pm, Christian Stimming wrote:
>> 1. You propose to pass installations paths by a header file.
>
> This is not a new mechanism.

No, but it's not recommended.  If you had built CashUtil as part of the 
GnuCash
source tree then I'd consider it more acceptable (because it's all part of one
source tree package).  But being external.....  No, I'm not convinced that
passing configuration in a header file is necessarily the right method.  Note
that 'config.h' is *NOT* installed!

>> 2. You propose to separate the configuration option definition from its
>> documentation.
>
> ? The 'documentation' is where it is because it's translated.
>
> I looked at putting this in the XML but it just isn't worth the effort.

I think Christian's point is that you put the english text in the XML 
file, but
then load the translations elsewhere.  That way the definition and the
description are always kept together.  You don't use XML's language support,
but you do use XML to keep the documentation for the options.

The process at runtime would be:

   load the XML
   read the description out of XML
   translate the description using the translation files

>> In principle that is fine. I'm just a bit confused: GnuCash needs a GNC
>> backend?
>
> Yes, because this backend is to be shared with CashUtil which is installable
> without GnuCash. It could, conceivably, be installed outside the GnuCash
> package directories - it's probably best that it is so that CashUtil
> installation doesn't need to mess around in a GnuCash installation. They both
> need libcashobjects.la and libgnc-backend-file.la which can be installed in
> some shared directory under the control of a new package. Straight-forward
> dependencies at the package level (apt-get).

Neil, you really need to differentiate between build/source requirements and
runtime/packaging requirements.  You seem to continually drive development
based on the latter, which is like the tail wagging the dog.

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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