Re: Misclassification of packages; "libs" and "doc" sections
On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 04:36:27AM +0300, Eray Ozkural <erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr> was heard to say:
> IMHO, this isn't an easy problem. The debian way, as you've observed
> is not scalable.
>
> Package classification is supposed to address comprehensibility
> issues. That is, it must make life easier for users and developers.
> Currently, it doesn't do that. If I didn't have actual experience
> of many packages, I'd have a hard time finding my way 'round the
> debian archive. [searching for keywords in package descriptions
> is the only working method to browse the archive, for instance]
I agree. I've found any number of really important utilities by accident,
or by hearing someone mention them offhand.
> I've been working on some proposal for this, but I haven't yet
> found good (enough) solutions to these (and other) problems.
> I'd brought this subject a few times here, and I don't think
> it received much attention (needs too much work, and there
> are usually more urgent things to do) Also discussed shortly
> on progeny-debian list.
I mentioned it a while ago, but didn't have time to followup. (look back
in summer of..um..99, I believe; I actually took the type to type up an
example of how I thought the hierarchy should be organized)
> I guess this subject should get some theoretical treatment
> first because it doesn't seem to be solvable by a few quick
> hacks. [In other words, needs some design]
Yeah :(
One thing that I think is that we should have a clearly defined "default"
categorization system, which is a reasonable way to find a program with
the first level of grouping, at least, being "function" (which is how I, at
least, would generally want to look for software, and which gives you a logical
overview of the system: "Ok, we have sound programs..types of sound programs
are MP3 players, MIDI players, MOD players, etc.." I'm not sure how this
should be generated and/or distributed, and people would probably want to
generate their own special hierarchies based on other criteria. (someone
said last time that they'd want to sort based on file-types handled)
Daniel
--
/----------------- Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu> -----------------\
| "But what *does* kill me bloody well leaves me dead!" |
| -- Terry Pratchett, _Carpe Jugulum_ |
\----------------- The Turtle Moves! -- http://www.lspace.org ----------------/
Reply to: