[Opensim-dev] Proposal for removing "ERROR: There was an error while scanning assembly:" message

[Sean Dague]

On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 05:51:12PM +0100, Justin Clark-Casey wrote:
> Stefan Andersson wrote:
> > Justin,
> >  
> > what was the problem with moving plug-in dll's to a separate directory?
> >  
> > Or, doesn't mono plugins support loading named plugins from an xml file, 
> > for example?
> >  
> > Wouldn't either of these solve the problem?
> 
> Stefan,
> 
> The mono addins package doesn't appear to support picking up modules 
> from a root directory different from the one in which the assembly 
> loading the plugins is situated.  The directory you give the addins 
> manager on initialization only appears to place the addin caching 
> information in a different directory instead.  Possibly this is as yet 
> incomplete functionality.
> 
> The xml in the addins directory looks tantalisingly like it should allow 
> the naming of different plugin directories, but from reading the code 
> this doesn't appear to be the case.
> 
> I haven't done much more experimentation, mainly because I'm beginning 
> to think it would be better if we re-used the same module loading code 
> we use to load region modules to load application 'plugins'.  This would 
> mean removing the mono addins manager.  The cons of this are
> 
> * We end up writing (and maintaining) our own plugin code, though much 
> of this is written already for region modules.
> * We lose the ability to have a multiple application plugin cache, 
> though I'm not sure how useful this is for us.
> * We lose the ability to version plugins - we would have to write this 
> in our own code.
> 
> The pro is
> 
> * We get what will probably be a simpler to understand system without 
> the complexity of maintaining an addins cache and the bugs which result. 
>   Mono.Addins pretty much has as much documentation as our own code, but 
> at least we wrote our own code...
> 
> On the whole, I think the pro outweighs the cons - particularly as it 
> seems odd for us to maintain two distinct plugin systems.  Any changes 
> we make will also be with a view to enhancing the current modularization 
> a little further down the road (e.g. to allow the explicit selection of 
> plugins).
> 
> Thoughts?

Honestly, I'd be more in favor of dropping our own plugin system to use
the Mono Addins more.  The hook point architecture in Mono Addins is
something we should be using more of.

    -Sean

-- 
__________________________________________________________________

Sean Dague                                       Mid-Hudson Valley
sean at dague dot net                            Linux Users Group
http://dague.net                                 http://mhvlug.org

There is no silver bullet.  Plus, werewolves make better neighbors
than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down.
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