Re: Large-scale java policy violations

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

Stefan Gybas <stefan@gybas.com> writes:
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:13:30PM +0200, Ola Lundqvist wrote:
> 
> > Two packages are probably better. One junit for the program
> > which depends on libjunit-java which contains the jar.
> 
> Please no! Do you want to put each single file in its own Debian
> package? In your suggstion the junit package would just contain the
> shell script /usr/bin/junit and /usr/bin/junit would just contain
> /usr/share/java/junit.jar if you put the API docs in another package.
> 
> Please keep the name junit. It's an application so it should be named
> like one.

  I see. By that same reasoning, you'd also put /lib/libc.so.6 in say,
  fileutils? ;-)

  In this particular example, I've never heard of the application
  "junit." I've only added junit.jar to my classpath, so I would
  expect to find libjunit-java. I'd search for junit, so I'd find
  either, but I'd wonder why I have one jar in a package named junit
  and another jar in a packaged libxerces-java.

  For consistency, I think we can limit ourselves to naming java
  packages in one of the following fashions:

  1. placing both the script, if any, and the jar in "foo".

  2. placing both the script, if any, and the jar in libfoo-java.

  3. placing the jar in libfoo-java and the script in foo.

  The only time you'd put a jar in a package named foo is if you would
  never, ever, use the jar directly. That is, the only one in the
  entire world that uses the jar is the script. This is definitely NOT
  the case with junit. Also, we have a precedent for placing jars in
  libfoo-java. It would be as if all the programs depended on
  fileutils instead of libc6. I don't think #1 is a great solution.

  I would be surprised if sticking the script in libfoo-java would
  have any precedent at all, so I think we can certainly rule out #2.

  Thus, I think I'd lean towards #3. How bad of a problem can this be?
  How many jars come with a script that goes in /usr/bin? I would
  think that there wouldn't be many. I think the other solutions
  sacrifice too much consistency.

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and mh-e. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.