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| 7.5 - Starchive Starchive is a concept of where technology like Starsync could take repositories. A number of the components and tools needed to make it happen already exist - Starsync will incrementally update a Starkit after installation, and the sdx “version” command provides a unique signature for a Starkit based on its contents. Starchive dispenses with the notion of a structured archive. A Starchive is a collection of data where the building blocks are called files - it maintains any number of them, as well as any number of revisions of them. Starchive doesn't even care about names for files. Starkits themselves are just organisated collections of components - some are simple "grab-and-run" programs, others are more extensive and include a set of standard packages they need to be self-contained and work as is. Yet others, such as Kitten, are collections which provide a packaged set of functionality to other Starkits. A Starchive is a collection of collections - think of Starchives as a way to collect and return Starkits on demand, where a Starkit may be an application, a package/extension, a set of documentation or a collection of some or all of these. And that's where Starchive is fundamentally different from many other archives - a Starchive is not centered around goals, but around snapshots. It does not force you to work towards a release, and then push that into the repository as being the real thing, it encourages you to give it snapshots. With whatever frequency is convenient. When collections are extracted, they will usually be the most recent versions (unless a downgrade is needed, which Starchives support trivially). Getting the very latest is made convenient and quick, encouraging "pull" modes of distribution. Nothing new, really - CVS works the same way. In fact a Starchive becomes the distribution channel. Anything can be a Starchive, including a small and focused repository for just release management to clients. The power of packaging on the fly. Starchives are about flow. Pulling collections. Anything. Not just Tcl. | see also | ||||
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