[dev] Up2Date

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Michael Pawlowsky <mjpawlowsky at yahoo.com>:

> I would try and rely on the least amount of external
> apps as necessary.

True.

> There already is a pretty decent
> bar to get over to get horde installed I find.

Yes, but the support for horde is often the problem (web server, php,
gettext, sql, etc) which really aren't horde issues.

> I had
> to recomile PHP several times to get all the necessary
> option to run horde.

I just use the RPMS on linux, which have always worked fine until
recently when PEAR stopped shipping with needed modules.  On solaris
I only needed to compile once after reading the docs, but again the 
PEAR issue.

I think one of the biggest problems lately is PEAR.  Used to be it 
installed with all the needed modules, now it doesn't.  One of the
biggest services we could provide therefor would be good, up-to-date
PEAR packages on ftp.horde.org for people to use, in easy to install
formats (windows zip files, linux rpms, solaris packages, etc).

> If you are a REAL sys admin or
> developer no problem.

I'll put myself in that category then, as I've had no problems...

> But I have a feeling more than
> one person must have given up trying to install horde.

I would guess many have.

> I don't know how many of you visit local commercial IT
> groups, but let me tell you, the level of knowledge in
> many IT departments would make it possible for them to
> install horde on their own.

True of many univeristy IT groups also...  Very sad.

> If they have PHP it is
> usually installed from some RPM.

That's how I do it, and it works fine (except lately for PEAR, which isn't
an RPM issue, just a PEAR issue).
 
> Writing a PHP diff, merge app would be pretty simple.

If it is simple, it will probably destroy configurations, not update them
completely, or not deal with them at all.  Same with storage backends.

> The other thing which would be nice about this is that
> it would have a certain level of error reporting. In
> the sense that it can check for dependencies. So if
> you have PHP 4.12 or something and that package/update
> requires 4.3 you simply don't allow the update to
> function. Or even group files together, like if you
> want to install this patch for mnemo must first
> install this one in horde etc.

But you expect them to see, read, understand, and know how to resolve these
problems once reported to them?

> Mike.

Personally, I'd rather see this effort put into a nice upgrade utility
to go between release versions than something to update from the development
versions...

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Why get even? Get odd!