Re: [debian-devel] Re: Ancient architecture
On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 09:15:30PM +0000, Magos?nyi ?rp?d wrote:
> A levelez?m azt hiszi, hogy Matt Zimmerman a k?vetkez?eket ?rta:
> > On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 02:06:01PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> >
> > > It's not "too" slow. It's slower than new systems, yes, but whether it's
> []
> > It takes four days to compile lyx. Can it even run lyx once it's finished?
>
> I guess that the definition of "too slow" here would be that: "such slow
> that the effort needed to maintain it isn't volunteered".
>
> The question of whether a compile lasts 4 days or 40, and whether the
> resulting binary runs on it is out of scope of the speed decision.
This is the normal explanation, but I don't think that this definition is
necessarily useful. No amount of effort can cause the process to take less
time, and in many cases that is the package maintainer's time, not the
buildd admin's time. If he needs to wait several days just to find out
that his package didn't build correctly, to upload a new version and wait
several days for feedback, this makes his job more difficult.
A better question is whether the end result of all this effort is actually
useful. One metric by which usefulness can be measured is, "is anyone
actually using it?". In the case of m68k, it is often possible to
demonstrate that the result is unused, because it is unusable.
> Some people simpy love these machines, and it is their right to do so.
Surely, I would not question anyone's right to love.
--
- mdz
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