RFC: Location for KexiDB and 3rdparty libs like sqlite

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

Thomas Zander said the following, On 2007-06-25 16:21:

> What problems do you see if the kexiDB code just stays in the same subdir 
> it is in now until there is a stable API?

I being lazy about this, have been really hoping the lib can stay in 
koffice/kexi/.
But people outside of KOffice would want to avoid checking out entire KOffice 
and/or disable compilation of apps. What are your thoughts about this 
regarding, say, Flake?
I'd like to employ 'release early & release often' style during the 
development, if someone is interested, just like the kdelibs had before 
stabilization.

>> Other apps would not have problems with this as the support would be
>> dynamically loaded.
> 
> I don't follow this line.   Do you mean the other apps will not link to 
> the full kexiDb library?

It's about moving dependency on KexiDB to a plugin. So there can be configure 
checks for KexiDB (with usual message "Plugin X will not be built becaue 
KexiDB not found"), and packagers have to add package with appropriate.

> Question; Is it possible to have just a couple of classes public so the 
> gory details of connections and drivers are all hidden from the public 
> API?

Yes, that's good design pattern. The new design for KDE 4, as I plan it, is 
more layered to address this. E.g. drivers/providers (plugins) require 
complicated API while apps using the freamework - do not. Thus, users (of 
applications) would be rather satisfied that only updating of drivers/provides 
(plugins) is needed after KexiDB API version changes, while apps can still 
work as these use a subset of the KexiDB API (which is also more stable part).

However, such things have to be developed and stabilized too.
During the heavy changes, users of KexiDB could be prepared to close 
collaboration to get effects they expect; this is a price of integration at 
relatively high level.

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
  Sponsored by OpenOffice Polska (http://www.openoffice.com.pl/en) to work on
  Kexi & KOffice: http://www.kexi.pl/en, http://www.koffice.org
  KDE3 & KDE4 Libraries for MS Windows: http://kdelibs.com, http://www.kde.org