Re: "dselect" replacement team
On Thu, 10 Apr 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:
> From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
> > And on another point, dpkg does seem to be in C, but there is an older
> > perl version I was inspecting, sorry for any confusion.
>
> Yes, that's really old.
I wonder why it still is included?
> In my honest opinion you need to become quite expert on this code before
> embarking on a project to replace it. I'd suggest you take some time
> to annotate the dpkg/dselect source code. It might take a few weeks but
> it would be worthwhile.
Unfortunately that has the negative side effect of influencing how you
build the new project by making you think in terms of the old. Since Brian
wants a clean break (and I suggest a very clean break) I would be very
heasitant to do a indepth analysis of how dpkg works internally.
But I do agree. it is vitally important to understand how dpkg works
externally. So I think we will be discussing this when Brian puts a team
together, maybe one member can investigate dpkg's source for any quirks
and the other(s) can design the new program? I don't know yet.
I have in the past 'cloned' the functions of other programs without having
the source to them, it is doable, sometimes quite easially. In this case
this is exactly what Brian wants, a clone of dselect with different keys
and colours :> Half the battle in 'cloning' is duplicating the subtle
special cases, which can be easially devined by looking at the source..
It should be a very interesting project!
Jason
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