sponateneous purging of a backscript?

[Richard Gaskin]

Chipp Walters wrote:

> 1) Jeanne's suggestion regarding changine the 'rev' prefix to something 
> else would be my first fix attempt. If RR is walking through the 
> backscripts and checking their owners, they could assume your backscript 
> is theirs, and do whatever with it.

With one limitation:  while that would apply to the downloaded stack 
("RevNet"), it wouldn't apply to the one being myteriously purged 
("GoRevNet").

That is, unless there's a bug in the IDE which checks for stack names 
which merely contain "rev" rather than start with "rev".  But if that 
were the case it's probably better for them to have this bug caught by a 
patient person like me rather than a newcomer making something like "My 
Rev Experiments". ;)


> 2) Consider moving your backscript into a subStack of RevNet and start 
> using it. Perhaps backscripts are purged, but I've never seen an open 
> stack purged (and I've done a lot of rev prefixed plugins;-)

Already done this morning (actually simpler, I just copied the scripts 
into the RevNet stack script).

While this resolves the scripting issue it doesn't resolve the 
appearance issues, which are caused by images stored in GoRevNet not 
being available to RevNet.

These could also be duplicated in RevNet, but then we start to diminish 
the value of a distributed system (more on that next in #3).

> 3) This is a bit controversial idea...but consider not using 
> backscripts, library stacks, or frontscripts in IDE plugins, unless you 
> *have to*. Each of these 'play outside the sandbox' and can interfere 
> with the IDE (you of course know this). All of my plugins which have 
> frontScripts (potentially the most troublesome) also have a toggle to 
> turn the frontScripts OFF. Course, when you close a plugin, the 
> frontScripts are removed automatically.

Same with RevNet -- the process is (normally):

1. The user opens GoRevNet
2. GoRevNet inserts a backscript
3. The user clicks "Go RevNet"
4. The RevNet stack is downloaded and run
5. The user closes RevNet
6. On closeStack, RevNet removes the backscript it's been using

One of the goals and benefits of distributed stackware is to minimize 
download times.  Ideally, as with AOL and similar systems, only those 
things that change would need to be downloaded.  In RevNet's case, that 
would include the images and text in the stack, but common scripts and 
images are stored in the plugin to avoid having to download them each time.

Not only does the use of shared libraries minimize download times for 
distributed wares, it also simplifies code maintenance:  keeping code 
well factored allows me to update one just script and everything that 
uses it benefits.  Each app I make has a backscript for the things all 
of its components need, I maintain a libary that contains the common 
stuff all of my apps need, and I have a few others I use for special 
purposes across multiple apps.  I save a lot of coding time using shared 
code, and RevNet users save some download time along with it; a win-win 
for everyone, well worth preserving.

Given that the engine supports what RevNet does and it's reported to be 
working great for all but four people over an 18-month deployment (two 
of whom can no longer reproduce the originally reported issue), I feel 
confident in suggesting it appears to be a relatively obscure IDE bug, 
but one worth finding as it may have similar implications for others. 
I'll start sleuthing and report back what I find....

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more:  http://www.fourthworld.com/rev