Re: Recent changes in dpkg
* Gerfried Fuchs <rhonda@deb.at> [100527 11:47]:
> Requiring the file won't get rid of format 1.0 but will make people put
> 1.0 into debian/source/format. Planing to make the file mandatory might
> indeed make more people think about it, though having the file won't
> make the format 1.0 go away. There are already quite some packages in
> the pool which explicitly have put 1.0 into the file - thus stating that
> your approach to deprecate 1.0 with making the file mandatory is on the
> losing end.
>
> So what is the real goal of making the file mandatory, your above
> stated reason is unfortunately not working out?
Not ignoring errors is an important part of software quality.
There are mostly three possibilities:
1) not require the file but work properly without
-> not possible as there are many packages that still need 1.0
and changing the default to 3.0 would annony developers not liking
it too much.
2) not require the file but choose old format in that case
-> in case of error people silently get the old deficit format
2) require the file in the long run
-> everyone can chose their own, noone will get an old deficit
format without requesting it in the future,
noone will get the new format without requesting it.
Bernhard R. Link
--
"Never contain programs so few bugs, as when no debugging tools are available!"
Niklaus Wirth
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