Re: deb-make
'Manoj Srivastava wrote:'
>
>>>"Igor" == Igor Grobman <igor@vaca.net> writes:
>Igor> Also, if you agree with Dale on the fact that implementation of
>Igor> debmake was not discussed before it was released, and still, in
>Igor> essence, is not controlled by all the developers, then why are
>Igor> you saying that you'll write something else that YOU will be
>Igor> happy with? You are doing same thing Christoph did--writing
>Igor> something that you like. Does that mean all the developers will
>Igor> like it? BTW, according to Christoph, the development of
>Igor> debmake was under Bruce's control from the start.
>
> Please, people, stop this trend of developing packages behind
> closed doors; I for one would welcome a discussion of this issue
> again.
I'm a bit flabbergast at this discussion. I remember the first few
versions of debmake were put out by C.L. as an expedient to describe
some ideas he thought would help make package development easier. I
thought his way of discussing policy via an implementation to be
completely reasonable (laudable, in fact). How debmake took a life of
its own and became unwritten policy is unfortunate, but it had nothing
to do with C.L. [I think this was largely due to Bruce's support of
debmake. Since debmake is easier to use than dpkg, I don't see how we
can fault Bruce with supporting it.] I think the poor design of
debmake (which is the reason I don't use it and the reason I never
will) are the result of its from-the-beginning experimental nature.
But it was an experiment that needed to be made. That was begging to
be made. Thanks Christoph!
I assumed that the useful parts of debmake would be added to dpkg
eventually. Unfortunately, Ian hasn't been around to help us make
these improvements. In fact, dpkg maintainance is one of Debian's
biggest problems right now: dpkg needs to be rewritten so that it is
maintainable by people besides Ian J. The library portions need to be
separated out so that other developers can build a UI on it. And
numerous bugs need to be resolved.
Doesn't everyone realize that part of the design process is knowing
that you will have to rewrite the code at least three times (almost
from scratch often)? Since dpkg is cutting edge, I expect it will
need to be rewritten several more times.
--
Christopher J. Fearnley | Linux/Internet Consulting
cjf@netaxs.com, cjf@onit.net | UNIX SIG Leader at PACS
http://www.netaxs.com/~cjf | (Philadelphia Area Computer Society)
ftp://ftp.netaxs.com/people/cjf | Design Science Revolutionary
"Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller | Explorer in Universe
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