Re: Intent to create a much nice WWW package viewer
Jules Bean wrote:
>
> --On Sat, Jul 4, 1998 7:53 pm -0400 "Kevin Atkinson" <kevina@clark.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi there,
> >
> > Remember Me.
> >
>
> I do.
>
> > Well this time I actually plan on doing something. I plan on making a
> > very very nice WWW interface for retrieving random packages (something I
> > do all the time).
>
> Cool idea. Some comments, though.
>
> First, generally. Your general game-plan seems to be a clever package
> downloader, with a nice interface. What you are doing seems to me to be
> something rather like a replacement for dselect - and your description
> suggests to me that you are someone who uses apt, but not dselect, and
> wishes for some of the dselect functionality. We already have a project to
> do this - and it's called apt.
>
> The apt you see at the moment is simply the dependency resolution,
> downloading, and install-time package ordering system. The entirety of the
> apt project will include a smart new user interface which is capable of at
> least some of what you describe.
I figured that. Will apt intelligently handle packages from different
distributions? I know dselect does a horrible job of it (it tries to
upgrade everything and not just what you select) ideally I would like it
to be able to show the tree of several releases and also be able to deal
with stuff in incoming and other non-offical areas with out having to
resort to dpkg.
> >
> > Here is my game plan
> >
> > 1) Import all the package file in (bo, hamm, slink, project, Incoming)
> > into a SQL database. I am using an SQL database to greatly eaze things
> > in the long one and to make it very eazy to create powerful searching
> > faculties as well as being able to view package information in any
> > number of formats.
>
> A few specifics.
>
> 1) Use of Incoming should be very optional, with the default being off.
The user will select which areas to chose packages from. If they only
want to use bo, it will allow that.
> 2) There is already a project in the works to move dpkg's internal databases
> (currently text) to a binary format. Or, at least, Ian Jackson has heavily
> hinted that such a change is in the offing on several occasions.
Ok, I like SQL becuase it allows easy searching and querying but it can
also be an overkill.
> 3) You mean facilities, not faculties. Faculties are quite different ;-)
Yes I do.
> > 2) Create the web interface for just looking at the packages and just
> > downloading that packages
> >
> > 3) Work on being able to select more than one package at a time and work
> > on a way to display all dependices (not just the ones directly related).
> >
> > 4) Here comes the big one. Work on a way of finding out the setup of
> > your debian configuration and work out any conflicts/dependencies.
> >
>
> [ingenious perl-server method deleted]
>
> I imagine that could me made to work. It's very clever - but what you have
> adequately demonstrated is that your project is not really ideally suited
> for the WWW. In general, one should bear in mind that HTTP is primarily a
> one-way information access protocol.
>
> I am not quite sure what advantages your project would have over the GUI
> version of apt, which I suspect is only a few months away anyway (Jason?)
I don't know either, all I saw of apt was a few screen shots.
>
> >
> > Unless I get an account on one of those machines I plan on doing the
> > work at http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/debian/ using MySQL as I already
> > have an account on sunsite and they have a mirror of the debian
> > distribution (although hamm contains a symbolic link to itself)
>
> As an aside, all developers have accounts on the debian machines, and
> accounts are very rarely given to non-developers. So if you're serious
> about projects of this scope, I suggest you sign up as a developer.
I will if I decide to go through with it.
> >
> > Cgi programming and organizing information is one of my strong points.
> > Go to
> > http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/ to look at some of the work I have done.
> >
> > Thanks again,
> >
> > And please be nice.
>
> I'm always nice ;-)
>
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