[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Re^2: strange behavior of dh_dhelp



* "Marco" == Marco Budde <mbudde@sms.antar.com> wrote:

Hi,

Am 25.09.99 schrieb roland # spinnaker.de ...

RR> It is always a good idea to use a generic format which can
RR> automatically converted to all useful formats instead of using one
RR> special format.

Marco> No, sorry, but this is wrong. Why should we convert files
Marco> during the installation process? There#re two better solutions:
Marco> 1) All programs use the same file format. 2) You can convert
Marco> the files during dpkg- buildpackage offline.

To 1), I propose dhelp and dwww read doc-base files directly.

To 2), this is a _very_ bad idea. How many packages still support
dwww, but not dhelp? How long did it take to bring support for dhelp
into the packages? If doc-base had been around form the beginning,
everyone would have used it instead of creating specific dwww
support. As soon as a new package like dhelp is installed into the
distribution, it is supported by _every_ package having registered
documentation. Converting to the different formats during package
build is a _very_ bad idea.

RR> If you think, that install-docs is too slow and dhelp-parse in

Marco> One reason to write dhelp was the speed of dwww.

This is a completely different thing. install-docs is run once during
installation. This has nothing to do with dwww's speed,

RR> package that uses /usr/share/doc/<pkg> has to create a symlink
RR> /usr/doc/<pkg> pointing to /usr/share/doc/<pkg>.  So all documentation
RR> should be available as /usr/doc/<pkg>.

Marco> No. A http daemon will never follow this symlinks. They#re 100%
Marco> useless when using the http protocol.

*No*, this is not true.  I can assure you, that my httpd follows these
symlinks quite happily.

Ciao,
	Martin


Reply to: