RFC: a minimal plugin architecture

Hi,

I am starting to get the idea that everyone feels I am being a little too ambitious. Slow learner, I know.

I think this is because my visions are much grander than people are willing to swallow right now, so I want to scale back to where I think there is some consensus and get some feedback about what a minimal plugin architecture would be.

I understand that I am yet to convince people of the merits of either git -mediated plugin management or package management, so let's assume that the contents of a "git-plugins" directory is managed only by package managers or plugin authors, following guidelines established by git-core.

I observed that Pau, Junio and Jonathan are receptive to the idea of a "standard" directory into which plugins could be installed. Pau would prefer one directory per package, and with that I would concur.

However, let's start simple, what would a minimal plugin directory look like and, assuming there was one per git-install, where would it be located relative to the prefix?

Here's a suggestion for the layout:

bin/
   - all scripts and sh libraries
man/
   - all man pages
html/
   - all html pages

What about location?

   ${prefix}/git-plugins
   ${prefix}/lib/git-plugins

Or, decided by distribution?

Is there support for the idea of adding a --man-path switch to the main line?

What about a --plugins-path, that would answer the question about where plugins should go?

Per Jonathan's and Junio's suggestions, the idea of having a plugins search path seems like a reasonable one, so that users without control over the git install can at least customize it themselves.

How would this path be configured by the user? Would the user configuration edit the git default or would it override it?

If there are multiple plugin directories, how would a plugin discover which one it has been installed in so that it can find any plugin-specific resource it might need?

Regards,

jon.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2011, Jon Seymour wrote:

distros are going to change this anyway, so start by accepting that, then make the default just that, a default, not something hard-coded.

I think it would be better to put it in the config file, nobody is going to add command line options to every command they run.

only if you make sure that the plugins only run as the user, with no chance of them being invoked as a privilaged user.

David Lang

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:12 AM,  <david@lang.hm> wrote:

Yep. Hopefully whatever the distro decided path would be available via a git --plugins-path switch?

Might not be necessary if we let plugins install into --exec-path, --html-path and (proposed) --man-path.

The intent here is to help package managers and plugin authors to decide where they place plugin artifacts like scripts and others resources. Similar to the existing --html-path and --exec-path options.

Sure.

Thank you!

jon.