Re: manpages.debian.org has been modernized!
On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 8:48 PM, Brian Potkin <brian@copernicus.org.uk> wrote:
> On Wed 18 Jan 2017 at 18:23:16 +0100, Michael Stapelberg wrote:
>
>> https://manpages.debian.org has been modernized! We have just launched
>> a major update to our manpage repository. What used to be served via a
>> CGI script is now a statically generated website, and therefore
>> blazingly fast.
>>
>> While we were at it, we have restructured the paths so that we can
>> serve all manpages, even those whose name conflicts with other binary
>> packages (e.g. crontab(5) from cron, bcron or systemd-cron). Don’t
>> worry: the old URLs are redirected correctly.
>>
>> Furthermore, the design of the site has been updated and now includes
>> navigation panels that allow quick access to the manpage in other
>> Debian versions, other binary packages, other sections and other
>> languages. Speaking of languages, the site serves manpages in all
>> their available languages and respects your browser’s language when
>> redirecting or following a cross-reference.
>>
>> Much like the Debian package tracker, manpages.debian.org includes
>> packages from Debian oldstable, oldstable-backports, stable,
>> stable-backports, testing and unstable. New manpages should make their
>> way onto manpages.debian.org within a few hours.
>>
>> The generator program (“debiman”) is open source and can be found at
>> https://github.com/Debian/debiman. In case you would like to use it to
>> run a similar manpage repository (or convert your existing manpage
>> repository to it), we’d love to help you out; just send an email to
>> stapelberg AT debian DOT org.
>>
>> This effort is standing on the shoulders of giants: check out
>> https://manpages.debian.org/about.html for a list of people we thank.
>>
>> We’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts. Either contact us via an
>> issue on https://github.com/Debian/debiman/issues/, or send an email
>> to the debian-doc mailing list (see
>> https://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/).
>
> Very nice. And as you say - blazingly fast. Thank you very much for the work
> put into it.
I’m very glad (all of you) like the result :).
>
> Have you considered the cultural and linguistic implications and the image of
> the Debian Project presented by the page which is served when a man page is not
> found.
>
> "Sorry, the manpage “driverless” was not found! Did you spell it correctly?" is
> informative and easily understandable by someone with a basic knowledge of
> English. It is can be acted on. The additional "Oh geez!" doesn't seem to add
> anything at all to resolving the issue. Maybe it gets translated into a helpful
> message in other languages? (Is it intended to raise a smile and keep one's
> spirits up in the face of failure?)
It does not get translated. In general, the user interface is english
only for now. And yes, the intent was for the program to come off as
playful and a bit quirky, so as to amuse you even though we just had
to present you with an error page.
>
> My preference would be to substitute something like "Oh, bugger!", "Oh,
> merde!", "Oh, crap!" "Oh, damn!", "Oh, sod!", "Oh, gosh!" or "OMG!". On the
> whole I'd remove the phrase to allow the message to stand by itself and get
> through.
I’ve replaced it with the more factual “Manpage not found”.
> BTW, my speling is generally good. The driverless man page is in experimental
> only.
We don’t currently process experimental. Maybe we should? I’ve filed
https://github.com/Debian/debiman/issues/23 to track this.
--
Best regards,
Michael
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