Donald G Porter wrote:
>  Jeff Hobbs wrote:
> > a. Use installing distribution repo (blow away pre-existing)
> > b. Use pre-existing repo (don't update with distro repo)
> > c. Merge
>  
>  Take my comments FWIW.  I've got little experience with ActiveTcl
>  and none with teacup.  But I do know the capabilities of Tcl's
>  [package] command.
>  
>  One of the capabilities Tcl's [package] command has over similar
>  facilities in other languages is the ability to select from multiple
>  installed versions according to requirements.  Given this ability,
>  option a) makes little sense to me.  The user has a bunch of
>  versions of packages installed.  A fat ActiveTcl brings a bunch
>  of versions of packages to get installed.  Each version of each
>  package ought to get installed into a location dictated by package
>  name and version number, so there will be no conflict unless exactly
>  the same version of exactly the same package is in both collections.
>  In that case, those ought to be byte-for-byte exactly the same thing,
>  so overwrite or not, it should not affect the final result.  There's
>  no necessity (no value?) in "blowing away" the packages accumulated
>  from earlier installs.

The key aspect overlooked here is the need to maintain data consistency 
in the local repo, which is a db file.

>  That ought to leave the options at two:  Install the bundled packages
>  (merging them into the installed collection, that is, (c)), or don't
>  (leave updating the set of installed packages in the hands of the users
>  wielding their teacups, that is, (b)).  And if the bundled packages are
>  not to be installed, it's puzzling why one would download the fat
>  "packages included" ActiveTcl if a "just a minimal ActiveTcl - no extra
>  packages thanks" download were offered too.
>  
>  Whether the options are two downloads, or two install options on a
>  single download, those seem to be the sensible choices, and option (c)
>  should be the default.

But as noted this can be very slow (like a couple of minutes) on 
install.  Would that not be annoying?  Perhaps we just need to 
reconsider the merge operation ... that's another thought.

Jeff
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