Bug#408529: ucf: Better documentation: Not a replacement for debconf handling
Hi Manoj,
you never replied to Frank's question below. I would like to know
what needs to be fixed/improved in the developers-reference. The issue of
handling configuration file is one of policy and until we write a proper
"Best packaging practice" paragraph on the topic, I don't think there
much to be done in the devel-ref.
Furthermore, I would expect the ucf documentation to contain warnings
much like the debconf man page warns you about improper usage of the tool
in debconf-devel(7).
Cheers,
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Frank Küster wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> wrote:
>
> > severity 408529 wishlist
>
> Severity set to `wishlist' from `wishlist'
>
> Am I correct in reading into this some criticism of the way I reported
> this bug? Can you be more explicit, please?
>
> > reassign 408529 developers-reference
>
> And is there a specific reason why you did not remove the "patch" tag
> upon reassigning?
>
> > Don't we already have a policy directive to not overwrite user
> > changes? And does not the dev ref say packages should not ask any
> > more questions than needed?
>
> Of course, but that's not what this bug report is about.
>
> > Creating a new file using debconf, and using ucf to ask the
> > user whether or not to use that, is poor development practice, and
> > should be so mentioned in the dev ref about proper handling of
> > configuration files. One should not clutter up ucf documentation
> > with a treatise on proper practice.
>
> I still think that ucf's manpage is a proper place to document this, in
> order to try to prevent ucf's frequent misuse.
>
> If you think this should rather be done in the developers reference
> (which currently does not mention ucf, let alone advertise its use),
> could you go a bit more into detail where you think the right place
> would be, and what the important bits of information would be?
>
> Regards, Frank
> --
> Dr. Frank Küster
> Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
> Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
>
>
--
Raphaël Hertzog
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