Ramblings and questions regarding Fedora, but stemming from gnome-software and desktop environments

[Alec Leamas]

On 05/01/15 10:04, Bohuslav Kabrda wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----

>> That said, what about describing  the developer usecase as a project,
>> focusing on a user using both GUI and CLI tools?
>>
>> - Get the sources (if they exist).
>> - Install a toolchain, GUI-based or not.
>> - Install dependencies: -devel packages, interpreted modules, etc.
>> - Install project- or user-specific tools (GUI or not).
>> - Keeping the installed sw updated.
>>
>> Installing the toolchain seems like DevAssistant to me. Besides this, I
>> understand your position as if users are supposed to use yum/dnf except
>> for GUI development tools and their dependencies (?)
>
> Currently DevAssistant "assistants" (read: plugins) that we have in Fedora are more of "kickstart a new project and install deps along" rather than "install a toolchain and perhaps do some other environment setup". This can however be easily extended by writing different plugins that will do just that.
> E.g. I can imagine us having "da prep fedora-dev c" (which will BTW automatically gain a clickable counterpart in GUI) that will setup development environment for C (and similar for other languages). We can even provide some choices like --use-eclipse, --use-whatever-other-IDE, ... I'm willing to put my work into this, but I'm mostly a Python developer, so I'd need input from people working with languages.
>
> Does that sound worth pursuing?
>

To my mind this looks attractive for the simple fact that multiple 
projects are more likely to share toolchain than dependencies.

But here is also questions e. g., are toolchains candidates for group 
installs or other existing mechanisms which  could be exposed in Gnome 
Software?  Would this than be an alternative and better way?

That said, what we really need here is the overall scheme, and this 
starts with the usecase. So: is the description above OK?

Given the usecase: if we use DevAssistent for the toolchain, which tool 
is then used for project dependencies in the general case? A modified 
Gnome Software or a general package manager like Gnome Packages?

Also, if we don't use Gnome Software for dependencies or the toolchain, 
what's then the role of it? A tool to keep the system updated? Isn't 
this then a rather massive overkill?

Cheers!

--alec