[DISCUSSION] New Project Structure

[prasadtalasila]

Describe the feature

As a developer I want to have better project structure So That current and new developers quickly understand the project code base.

Describe the problems your feature request solves

The current project structure is a mix of workspace Dockerfile, compose files to test it with components of DTaaS and DTaaS config and data files.

This structure can be improved upon to separate

• Workspace related items
• Compose files to try workspaces in different configurations
• DTaaS-specific config and data files

Describe the solution you'd like

The proposed structure is given in new-project-structure branch.

Success Criterion

Checklist:

• Rename workspace-nouveau to workspace
• All the compose files work as expected
• Github Action workflows are successful
• Documentation is up-to-date

[DisasterlyDisco]

I like differentiating between dtaas related files and workspace files.

I propose two changes to your given proposal: moving the ./dtaas folder into ./workspaces/test and moving and renaming ./workspaces/config to ./workspaces/src/resources

The workspaces are the key artifact of this repository, and as such I think it makes sense to order the directory hierarchy around the relation and importance to the workspace images.

Moving ./dtaas into ./workspaces/test communicates that the files in /dtaas are related to the workspaces integration with the larger DTaaS system instead of being the source of an artifact separate to the workspaces, putting it in the test subfolder specifically because the files are used to test if the workspaces can integrate with DTaaS.

The structure ./workspace/config, to me, communicates that the contained files are used to configure the workspace itself. What the directory actually contains are config files for services and programs running in the container. Viewing the files from the perspective of the workspaces artifact, they instead represent src files necessary to build the workspace image. Compared to the other file types in the ./workspaces/src directory - ./workspaces/src/install, containing files used to install services which are removed before image generation; and ./workspaces/src/startup, containing files needed for starting services and setting up the user environment at container startup - the "config" files are all meant to exist permanently in various locations in the resulting workspace file structure. Thus they are examples of permanent resources needed for the image, and for this reason I propose the name ./workspaces/src/resources.

Finally, I like having linting files, git related files and other miscellaneous files in the repository root, communicating that these files are integral to the repository infrastructure, not the workspaces artifact. That being said, if we expect these miscellaneous files to become very numerous (like 20-30 files or above), I'd want to try and move these to a subfolder to keep the repository root uncluttered. But, as I see it right now, this won't be the case.

I've pushed these changes to the related structure branch you created, new-project-structure.