Re: [widgets] Zip vs GZip Tar

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

Received on Thursday, 29 April 2010 17:38:59 UTC