Re: Autoload properties for OF packages

[Carnë Draug]

On 14 July 2015 at 18:31, Julien Bect <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> What is the current policy for the "Autoload" property of OF packages ?

For the last 2 or 3 years, the policy has been that OF packages must not
autoload.

> Colin McDonald has proposed [1] to display the "Autoload" field on
> index.html only when it is true, arguing that Autoload is "deprecated".
>
> In which sense is it deprecated (if it really is) ?

It's not deprecated in pkg(), packages can autoload.  Just not OF packages.

Personally, I wouldn't mind completelly remove the autoload option from
pkg() but I know some some would disagree.  This gives them a more Matlab
feeling, where they don't care what toolboxes they are using.

> What is the rationale for setting the "Autoload" flag for some OF packages
> (java [2], linear-algebra [3], and perhaps others) but not the others ?

The last release of the java package was before the no-autoload policy.
There are other packages like that.  On the case of linear-algebra, I
believe it's a bug on the generate_html.

I have not investigated this, it is pure conjecture, but I believe the
the bug comes from:

  * generate_html does not make use of the source tarball to generate the
    documentation, it makes use of the package installation.
  * installed packages do not keep track of the package defaults.  It only
    "knows" its current state.
  * therefore, generate_html only knows about the autoload settings on the
    installation made by the package maintainer.  If the package maintainer
    set it for autoload, then the HTML will come out with autoload set to
    true.

There may be other cause for this bug.  Three years ago I fixed another
bug where autoload would be set incorrectly [4].

> Does it sound like a good idea to hide the "Autoload" field on index.html
> when it is false ?

The idea behind the generate_html is that it could be used outside Octave
Forge.  In such place packages that autoload by default could exist.

Point is, whether to autoload or not is package information, therefore we
should list it.  On the other hand, if we completely removed the autoload
field from the DESCRIPTION file (require users to do "pkg install -auto"
which is what they already have to do for OF), then yeah, we could remove
this from the generate_html.

Carnë

[4] http://hg.code.sf.net/p/octave/generate_html/rev/903455b8d250