Re: [widgets] Zip vs GZip Tar

I remain perplexed by the state of "the spec is feature complete and looking
for implementations" -> potential implementors saying "the spec has X,Y,Z
flaws" -> "sorry, the spec is feature complete. We're looking for
implementations." At this rate, it's not clear to me what implementations
it's going to get.

(speaking as an individual here, and not a representative of Google Inc,
Google Chrome Team, or necessarily even as a member of webapps WG.)

-ian

Am 29. April 2010 10:38 schrieb Marcos Caceres <marcosc@opera.com>:

> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 6:34 PM, Gregg Tavares <gman@google.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:52 AM, Arve Bersvendsen <arveb@opera.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:48:52 +0200, Gregg Tavares <gman@google.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Has there been any consideration of switching the spec to a stream-able
> >>> format like gzipped tar files?  It seems like a shame to miss this use
> >>> case.
> >>
> >> A streamable container, while intriguing, also has issues.  For
> streaming
> >> to be of use, you need to specify the order of resources: the widget's
> >> configuration file and start file should be the first two files in the
> >> resource bundle. Are there readily available (on all major platforms)
> tools
> >> that do this, easily?
> >
> > Yes, Linux and OSX have gzip and tar. Tar puts the files in the order
> given.
> >
> > Windows has 7zip (open source) and rar (shareware) which will make
> gzipped
> > tar files and also puts the files in the order given.
>
> Our design goal [1] was always to use the lowest common denominator
> (i.e., some packaging format that was available natively on all
> platforms... [un]fortunately, Zip was the only realistic option).
> Having said that, there is no reason not to standardize a format as
> the one Gregg is suggesting. However, this would be separate from the
> current spec (which is already feature complete and looking for
> implementations).
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets-reqs/
>
> >>
> >> (Other than that, see timeless' comments about this really being too
> late
> >> for the current spec)
> >> --
> >> Arve Bersvendsen
> >>
> >> Opera Software ASA, http://www.opera.com/
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Marcos Caceres
> Opera Software ASA, http://www.opera.com/
> http://datadriven.com.au
>
>