Re: Done
On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 17:46:05 -0500, Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> said:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 05:14:42PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:43:29 -0400, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
>> said:
>>
>> > I think brevity can be a virtue. Maybe you don't, given how
>> > long-winded your report template managed to be, while saying so
>> > little. :-P
>> Brevity may well be the virtue of princes, but to tell a novice use
>> what a package does, whether they should consider installing it on
>> their machine, how it is different from the competition (if any),
>> and the advantages or disadvantages of the package - all in under
>> 80 characters -- well, that, for the majority of one liner
>> descriptions I see, smacks of a misfounded expectation of genius.
>> I am not sure of the packages you refer to, but the odd dozen or so
>> I chased down, the one liner was indeed inadequate.
>> Why is there this desire for arcana, or a gauntlet of learning
>> curves to be thrown at users as a rite of passage before they can
>> use our packages?
> Because the packages in question *are* arcane, and should *not* be
> installed by novice users who don't already know what they are?
So why not specify something like that in the description? Why
this juvenile rite-of-passage idiocy? Why not say package X is the
common parts of packages Y and Z, and you would never need to install
X directly?
I am tired of "My users are intelligent, so I can be lazy and
incompetent and not provide a useful long description" defense. We
are 31337 hackerz, and if you don't know this stuff, nyah, nyah, you
can't be part of out select corteri.
Faugh.
> IOW: for some package descriptions, being cryptic an inaccessible to
> users is a feature, not a bug.
Bullshit. It is merely a sign of an incompetent maintainer.
manoj
--
> The Independent quotes this from The Progressive, Sept. 1990:
> "Louisiana State Rep. Carl Gunter, explaining why abortion should
> not be permitted even when the pregnancy results from incest: 'The
> way we get thoroughbred horses is through inbreeding. With incest,
> you could get super-smart kids.'" This undoubtedly explains State
> Representative Gunter's visibly high intelligence... Lefty
> (lefty@twg.com)
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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