Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

[Thomas Hallgren <thomas@xxxxxxx>]

On 09/28/2010 09:19 PM, Jeff McAffer wrote:
> I strongly caution people *against* making container features that use 
> requires rather than includes to get flexibility in updating products. 
>  This will lead to non-determinisim and unmaintainable end-user 
> installs unless you carefully manage the repos available to your end 
> users.
That's certainly one way of looking at it. Another is that by using 
ranges (i.e. requires), you create flexible and agile entities that can 
coexist in several different combinations while trusting the framework 
(i.e. p2 and OSGi) to provide the necessary stability. I.e. you get out 
of the "dll hell" problem.

Fixed version includes on the other hand, creates brittle and inflexible 
entities that often break common use cases (as the one explored here for 
instance).

So while I agree that you do loose the determinism, I disagreee that it 
gets unmaintainable. It's the contrary actually. Suddenly you can 
maintain a much broader range of products and combinations and at last, 
the plumbing underneath is good enough to manage it.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren