On Sun, Apr 28, 2002 at 02:22:41PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> There is also the matter of perception (quality of
> implementation is a subjective matter).
There're other quality of implementation issues that affect such
perceptions too, though: one is the number of pointless little packages
you have to find and install to have your system continue working the
way it used to.
> The way it works is this:
> If a prorgram does not work (and a link failure is as classic a
> definition of does not work as one can get), the program is
> broken. If the program is broken, the package is broken (perhaps
> partially broken, but broken it is).
"Partially broken" and "Gracefully degraded" are just different ways
of saying the same thing, really. Your argument would be much more
convincing if you could do it without trying to imply that pcmcia-cs
without X is anything more than gracefully degraded.
> Anthony> "Programs" is not a good division to make. "Packages"
> Anthony> is. "Features" is. What's a "program" and what isn't is an
> Anthony> implementation detail, and little more.
> But people interact with programs, really, not packages. We
> had an invariant: set up a package right, and things work as
> advertised.
We've never had that invariant. pcmcia-cs has been this way for ever,
apt-preconfigure has been this way since woody, and there're a handful
of other packages which have moved from or to it at various times.
I think everyone agrees that it's a Bad Thing to have packages like this,
the question is really whether it's completely unacceptable to ever do it,
or if having packages with a single fairly trivial binary and different
depends: is enough to justify it.
> Now, we say, install all possible optional dependency
> packages, and all that they recommend/suggest, and then maybe,
> programs you just installed may work.
If you install all the dependencies, and nothing more, all your programs
will work, except for a few that you don't care about anyway that have
good reason to be as they are.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``BAM! Science triumphs again!''
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