Re: deb-make
Christoph Lameter:
> On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > How did we manage to get into the situation where an arguably
> > badly-designed piece of software became so quickly and with so little
> > discussion wired into the guts of Debian's package management so
> > deeply that we can't change it ?
>
> Could you please be specific in what ways "debmake" is badly designed?
Packages using debmake have a `hidden interface' to debstd. debstd's
interface keeps changing.
I think that having a special tool like debstd determine what to do at
run-time is a bad thing; it leads to unpredictability and fragility.
Instead, a template-based debian/rules generation scheme would have
been better.
The whole thing gives the impression that each new feature was added
in a hurry when it was noticed that it was missing.
...
> > This will be no problem for `simple' packages, where the investment in
> > getting them to work with debmake is small and the time required to do
> > the same with the new tool will also be small.
> >
> > For complex packages I _strongly_ recommend _not_ using debmake.
>
> Complex packages have been done by debmake. Debmake allows overriding of
> whatever you need to implement specialized functionality.
However, complex packages involve much more work - work that will be
wasted when debmake becomes obsolete. Doing a complex package by hand
is not much harder (if any) than using debmake.
> > I think its design and programming interface are poor, and can only be
> > fixed incompatibly. I think its implementation is poor, and that this
> > is best fixed by having it rewritten by someone else.
>
> Huh? The vote of no confidence? One thing I really enjoy about how
> leaders in the Debian Project appreciate the work done by others.
Are you saying that because you're a volunteer I have to like your
design and code ? I don't think that's a good argument.
Note that I'm not criticising you personally for doing what you've
done, nor am I saying that you have to fix it. I'm saying that I
don't particularly like it, that I think it ought to be fixed, and
that I think you're probably not the right person to fix it.
I'm trying very hard to express my technical opinions on these matters
without it coming across as a personal attack.
Ian.
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