Re: Bug#150181: ITP: terminal -- Terminal Emulator for GNUstep
>>>>> "CW" == Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:
Me> Current usage for GNUstep applications in Debian seems to be to
Me> use a lowercased version of the name and to remove the ".app"
Me> if any.
CW> Hm. This seems a shame.
Well, it's not that crazy. I mean, we don't have a lot of packages
named libspock.so or gar-doc.info or anything. The filename extension
of the main file(s) doesn't seem to be really important for the
package name.
CW> I objected to "preferences" too at the time, so at least I'm
CW> consistent. :)
That's fair enough. B-) *I'm* just trying to stay in step with
existing practice for GNUstep application packages.
If this is cheesing you off enough, maybe you should consider
organizing some kind of GNUstep policy document, with, among other
things, naming conventions for application packages?
Me> There are no current packages or virtual packages named
Me> "terminal," so there's not a namespace clash.
CW> Perhaps I should have said "potential future namespace
CW> clash".
Well, yes, there is potential for a future namespace clash. Then
again, there always is.
I realize that that's kind of a glib response. But, there's already a
virtual package for X terminal emulators, called quite nicely
"x-terminal-emulator". One could conceive of a virtual package for
requiring *any* terminal-like thingy, for example a console, xterm, or
a serial term. I'm guessing that with, what, maybe 3-5000
terminal-based packages getting along without this, it's not too
necessary for the near future.
Any such change would be fairly easy to make, too.
As we approach Debian package number 10,000, the namespace problem is
becoming more acute everyday. Changing "terminal" to
"gnustep-terminal" or "terminal.app" isn't going to fix it, though.
CW> Certainly it seems to encourage people to install the
CW> "terminal" package in the belief that it's generic, unless
CW> they read the package description carefully.
If anyone scrolls through the hundreds of packages in x11/optional,
finds something named "terminal," doesn't read the 4-word short
description, and installs it just because they think computers are
supposed to have terminals, well, I don't know what to tell you except
that that person deserves to lose. Here "lose" is defined as
"accidentally install a terminal emulator and possibly also GNUstep"
-- not exactly a fate worse than death.
If there were a truth-in-advertizing clause for packages, we'd have
marginally-cooledit, only-some-info, and not-really-sex. B-)
~ESP
--
Evan Prodromou
evan@debian.org
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