Re: Offer of help
Fernando <alegre@saturn.superlink.net> writes about some template parser...
What exactly should the templates be for? Configuration?
Who should ever lern the syntax or correct scripts if something is wrong?
What happens if you parser doesn't work? Can you still install
packages?
Can templates be localised? Do you get localised help to templates?
Your templates look pretty difficult to understand and pretty messy to
me. Normaly maintainers can program c (or whatever their program is
written in) and bash (enough for the postinst script). Why force them
to learn a rather difficult and messy language like yours?
I can't see any benefits over my proposal, which probably covers your
ideas and much more. My config scripts would be valid bash scripts
with only a few limitations to allow for better parsing.
Also you will get problems when people change the config files
directly instead of using the database. Those inconsistency give the
users hell on earth. You eigther can't use the database at all any
longer, because on every run it will destroy all your changes or you
can't use it, because it won't work on user modified configfiles.
Also you can't create a database from a running system, e.g. for a
backup, or suggest whatever was selected last or by the package when
asking question. You make no differencing between values specific for
some architecture, only one host or all systems. Also you don't have
levels of questions, allowing to skip many when beeing an
unexpirienced user.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
Reply to: