43 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
43 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
I am considering removing the `git-annex webapp`. Your feedback is
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appreciated if you still use it. --[[Joey]]
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The assistant would be retained, so existing setups that were configured
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with the webapp would keep working, although users of those would need to
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replace any use of the webapp to control them with command-line use.
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The webapp has been only minimally maintained for about 10 years. There
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have been no new features, and while it amazingly continues to work, it
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doesn't addess many of the changes in git-annex. For example, there's no
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way to configure exporttree special remotes in the webapp.
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I think the webapp is barely used by git-annex users. The point of it was
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to make git-annex easy enough to set up to reach a larger user base. That
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necessarily meant building something that aspired to be more like dropbox
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than git. That never really happened. git-annex found its own user bases
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that appreciate its actual strengths, and who have helped build it in the
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directions where more and more people find it useful.
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Keeping the webapp in git-annex has a price. It has a complex and
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annoying dependency chain. (See [[ditch_yesod]].)
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It uses template haskell, which makes build times slow, and makes
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building use a lot more memory.
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The webapp also has some security exposure that stock git-annex does not
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have. Beyond the business of connecting to the webapp securely, the adhoc
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network protocol used by the webapp's pairing interface is baked into the
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assistant even when the webapp is not being used. And is not otherwise used
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in git-annex, and has had at least one security issue in the past.
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The git-annex binary also ends up significantly larger due to containing
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the webapp. And removing it deletes 28 thousand lines of code from
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git-annex, including embedded code copies of bootstrap and jquery.
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----
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The `removewebapp` branch has a working patch to remove the webapp.
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Documentation that mentions the webapp, including doc/git-annex-webapp.mdwn
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still would need to be updated.
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Also annex.autoupgrade needs to be updated, one of the options was webapp
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specific. Maybe upgrades are out of scope for the assistant too?
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