DVM - D Version Manager 0.4.0

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Jacob Carlborg" <doob at me.com> wrote in message 
news:jec1j6$2rbu$1 at digitalmars.com...
>
> Ideally it should come before other new features. I mean, the more stuff 
> we put in there the more mess it will be. The point of the refactoring is 
> of course to make it easier to add new features and to understand the 
> code.

Yea, that makes sense. I guess I just wasn't sure how "deep" the refactoring 
you were envisioning was going to be.

Something possibly releated I've been meaning to bring up: I've been 
thinking that DVM's commands and options should work more like, say, git or 
svn. By that I mean: Right now DVM has a set of commands, and a set of 
"global" DVM options. Problem is, some of the options only apply to some of 
the commands. This sugegsts a few changes:

1. "dvm --help" should only show globally-applicable options. (--verbose 
and --help are probably only ones right now.)

2. "dvm [command] --help" (and maybe "dvm --help [command]", too) should 
show a command-specific help screen.

This isn't a *huge* need right now, but I think it'll only become more and 
more important as DVM progresses. I don't know if this is something that 
should be taken into account in the refactoring, or just left until after.

Another thing that might need to be considered in the refactoring: On Linux, 
DVM doesn't currently work inside a shell script. It's just not recognized. 
I'm sure it probably has something to do with the "dvm" shell-function. 
Maybe it's because it's set to only be defined on interactive prompts? I 
don't really know for certain what the problem or the solution is, so 
depending on whatever the "right" solution is, this might be a "take into 
account in the refactoring" matter.


> About the refactoring, what to you think about these:
>
> * Move to git

I don't have a really strong opinion on that. While I kind of like Hg a 
little better, I normally use the Tortoise tools, and I like TortoiseGit 
much better than TortoiseHg. Also branching is built into Git rather than 
being a grafted-on extra, which is nice. (And of course, DVM goes 
hand-in-hand with DMD and DMD is Git). So I guess I would lean more towards 
Git, but either way works.


> * Move to github

It's ultimately up to you, but personally I can't stand Github. My vote 
would be to stick with Bitbucket.

Granted, I haven't actually tried Bitbucket's Git support yet. But just 
yesterday I started the process of converting a couple of my projects from 
SVN/Dsource to Git/Bitbucket, so we'll see how it goes, and I'll let you 
know.


> * Port to D2, still using Tango
>

I'm definitely in favor of switching to D2. In fact, I took the leap from 
D1/Tango straight to D2/Phobos on my own projects about a year or so ago, so 
I have some experience in that (and D2's only gotten better since), and I'd 
be happy to take the lead converting it to D2. I found that the vast 
majority of changes I needed to make were Tango->Phobos because, while there 
are some breaking changes from D1->D2, most of the changes are additive, and 
D1-style code works fine in D2 with only very little change.

As far as Tango: I have no idea what the state of D2's Tango is, and 
personally I'd prefer Phobos. But if you have reason to believe D2's Tango 
is ready to use and you'd prefer that, then I'm perfectly fine with it. 
Actually, heck, if we're going to switch to D2, we may as well at least give 
D2's Tango a try along the way. If it works, it works, if it doesn't we can 
help out D2's Tango or just do Phobos (especially since 2.058 will have that 
new curl module).