[gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Brian Dolbec]

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As times have changed and IRC is used more an more.  I propose adding an
optional <irc></irc> data field to layman's repositories.xml file
format.  This information would be listed along with the other
information when running:

# layman -i some-overlay

This added information would then be available and listed in
>=layman-2.0* for any overlays that choose to add that information to
their listing. Yes, that functionality is present in layman-2.0.0_rc3
which is currently in the tree.  For layman 1.* versions this additional
information would simply be ignored and not printed since there is no
code to detect and print it.  So there would be no backwards compatible
problems caused by running the older layman versions.  I also do not
intend to add that functionality to the 1.* versions as the 2.0.0_rc3
release is quite stable and I am near to releasing a 2.0.0 final.


The irc field would be a simple string that can contain irc:// urls or
plain text channel listings.  Same as the homepage field.

eg:

    <irc>Channel #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
or
    <irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>


For those that might not like the repositories.xml file grow slightly
larger with the additional data (if added).  The layman-2.0 api has made
changes to reduce the bandwidth usage on the gentoo servers.  I will
create a more detailed blog post about those results later.  But for
those wanting to see the data that Alec Warner <antarus> graciously
compiled from the infrastructure logs.  See bug 398465 [1].  The
layman-2.0 api will reduce overall bandwidth far more than the
additional irc data will add to it.


[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=398465
-- 
Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Kent Fredric]

On 11 March 2012 22:09, Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> eg:
>
>    <irc>Channel #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
> or
>    <irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>
>

Though a freeform text field is probably better for humans, I'd
suggest having more explicit data available as an option, ie:

<irc network="irc.freenode.org" channel="#gentoo-guis">Channel
#gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>

This way you can put more behaviour on the display side in whatever UA
is processing the XML, for example, you could easily add support for
some GUI portage tool to add an "IRC" button on relevant packages
being displayed, that opens the IRC channel listed in the users chosen
IRC client ( as configured in the GUI's preferences ).


-- 
Kent

perl -e  "print substr( \"edrgmaM  SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\", \$_ * 3,
3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );"

Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 08:52:20PM +1300, Kent Fredric wrote:
> On 11 March 2012 22:09, Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > eg:
> >
> > ?? ??<irc>Channel #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
> > or
> > ?? ??<irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>
> >
> 
> Though a freeform text field is probably better for humans, I'd
> suggest having more explicit data available as an option, ie:
> 
> <irc network="irc.freenode.org" channel="#gentoo-guis">Channel
> #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
+1 on this.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead
E-Mail     : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP   : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85

Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Brian Dolbec]

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On Mon, 2012-03-12 at 08:49 +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 08:52:20PM +1300, Kent Fredric wrote:
> > On 11 March 2012 22:09, Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > eg:
> > >
> > >     <irc>Channel #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
> > > or
> > >     <irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>
> > >
> > 
> > Though a freeform text field is probably better for humans, I'd
> > suggest having more explicit data available as an option, ie:
> > 
> > <irc network="irc.freenode.org" channel="#gentoo-guis">Channel
> > #gentoo-guis on the freenode network</irc>
> +1 on this.
> 

... and just when I was beginning to think no one actually cared :) ...

The proper form of an irc url is in my example
"irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis" and I took it from gentoo's irc
channel page at http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/irc.xml .

That would mean limiting a single <irc></irc> field to just valid url's
just like the <homepage></homepage> field.

<irc>irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>

The other thing I find with your example is that layman no longer uses
that old style of xml.  It still supports it, if you have that format
for some overlay definitions.  But does not fit the current
repositories.xml format.

Personally I would find it quite simple to use a reg expression to
extract a valid irc url from a mixture of written text and url.
<irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>

So far there is not a gui for working with layman, so is all command
line, including the output of layman -i some-overlay.  Don't get me
wrong, I have nothing aginst a layman gui.  I actually ended up taking
over layman's development because of it's lack of a good api for other
apps to use.  Namely porthole.  Plus I fully intend to create a
standalone gui for layman.

Would it be better that I create 2 irc sub data types then? 

<irc>
    <description>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network</description>
    <url>irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</url>
</irc>

So far it seems many/most systems do not come setup to recognize and
take proper action for irc:// mime types like they do for http://

-- 
Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:33:28 -0700
Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org> wrote:

> The proper form of an irc url is in my example
> "irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis" and I took it from gentoo's irc
> channel page at http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/irc.xml .

Exactly. Most web browsers would know what to do with that, too.

> That would mean limiting a single <irc></irc> field to just valid
> url's just like the <homepage></homepage> field.
> 
> <irc>irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>

Why not go with a slight variant of the venerable <a href> format?

<irc uri="irc://irc.example.com/gentoo-guis">Your support channel
is here</irc>

Either that or use two tags, <uri> and <description> nested in an <irc>
tag?


     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: New irc data field in layman's repositories.xml file format

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 01:33:28AM -0700, Brian Dolbec wrote:
> ... and just when I was beginning to think no one actually cared :) ...
I specifically wanted to avoid any special regex to pull data out of the
XML. Merging fields is acceptable, splitting them based on regex isn't.

> The proper form of an irc url is in my example
> "irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis" and I took it from gentoo's irc
> channel page at http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/irc.xml .
The '#' is debated in the URL scheme specs.
The last RFC draft I saw for it was:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-butcher-irc-url-04

Earlier drafts did explicitly call for dropping the '#', but that lead
to trouble distinguishing between a user with the same name as a
channel.

> That would mean limiting a single <irc></irc> field to just valid url's
> just like the <homepage></homepage> field.
We can allow 0 or more irc fields in the DTD...

> Personally I would find it quite simple to use a reg expression to
> extract a valid irc url from a mixture of written text and url.
> <irc>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network, irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</irc>
Don't use a regex on XML. Actually connect it properly.


> Would it be better that I create 2 irc sub data types then? 
> 
> <irc>
>     <description>#gentoo-guis on the freenode IRC network</description>
>     <url>irc://irc.gentoo.org/gentoo-guis</url>
> </irc>
No, that's really bloated.

> So far it seems many/most systems do not come setup to recognize and
> take proper action for irc:// mime types like they do for http://
It's not a mime type. It's URL scheme.

Docbook/GuideXML style:

Option 1a)
<irc link="irc://irc.gentoo.org/#gentoo-guis" />
Option 1b)
<irc link="irc://irc.gentoo.org/#gentoo-guis">
  For GUI issues in Gentoo
</irc>

HTML style:

Option 2a)
<a rel="irc" href="irc://irc.gentoo.org/#gentoo-guis" />
Option 2b)
<a rel="irc" href="irc://irc.gentoo.org/#gentoo-guis">
  For GUI issues in Gentoo
</a>

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead
E-Mail     : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP   : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85