Re: [aptitude]

[Daniel Burrows <dnb114@psu.edu>]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 05:13:06AM +0100, Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org> was heard to say:
  [attribution line snipped accidentally -- the inner quotation is Osamu
  Aoki]
> > The real problem of "aptitude" is that its categorical browser data base
> > is so outdated.  
> 
> The REAL problem is that our Sections:-stuff does not scale. We NEED
> something better, like freshmeat's Trove categories. 

  Yeah.  The category stuff in aptitude was meant to be a first crack at
something like that (although I'm not too familiar with Trove, so I'm
not sure exactly how it compares)  Unfortunately, generating the data
turns out to be rather difficult.  I'm certainly willing to try doing it
in a decentralized way -- for instance, via a control field in the package,
or a file dropped in a special directory.

> > Also, current Debian archive does not have good "scoping" information.
> > Something like rating for each package for some typical use. 
> 
> I don't know if we want that. We have so many packages that a big amount
> of them won't have 'typical use' except the itch they were programmed
> for. And if we present the user with a thousand 'typical uses' in
> tasksel, this won't help...

  It might be useful to have a few generic classes of stuff that would
limit the displayed packages -- eg, if "desktop" is selected, hide
everything but the stuff that's useful for a simple desktop system (GUI
mail clients, web browsers, games, editors, etc)
  I'm not sure, though.

> > Right now it is on/off, i.e., in "task" or not in
> > "task".In alternative infrastructure, command have priority assigned.
> > But in package level, we do not have point system like that.  With "l"
> > option infrastructure, aptitude has capability to scope package archive
> > if additional score information is added.
> 
> Can you (or Daniel) elaborate what that is? I did not quite understand
> this, sorry.

  I'm not sure either.  Osamu has been emailing me about a feature
involving assigning keywords and points to packages, but I haven't quite
figured out exactly what he wants yet.  It sounds like something where I
could easily implement the software bit as proof-of-concept in aptitude,
though.

  Daniel

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/-------------------- Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> -------------------\
|               I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not sure.                |
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