Re: Opinions on CDBS amongst sponsors

[Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>]

Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:

> Neil Williams <linux@codehelp.co.uk> writes:
>
> > So the main objections to CDBS are that it hides too much, making it
> > hard to know what is actually going on.
>
> > How does this compare with other helper scripts like debuild and
> > pdebuild?
>
> Those aren't used as part of the package build process; they're wrappers
> around it that one doesn't have to use even if the maintainer does.  I
> think you mean debhelper.  debhelper, unlike CDBS, has actual
> documentation: every command has a man page, and every command does what
> the man page says it does.

There would be lot to improve in packaging manual pages because they
"stack" over the lower level commands making it hard to understand
what exact options {are|can be use used}.

Especially adding the EXAMPLES sections would greatly improve all the
manual pages by listing the typical usage cases. Here is an exerpt.

                                Includes EXAMPLES section
                                -----------------------
        debuild                 yes
        dpkg                    yes
        dpkg-buildpackage       no
        dpkg-deb                no
        dpkg-query              no
        dh_make                 no
        lintian                 no
        fakeroot                no
        make-kpkg               no
        pdebuild                no
        pbuilder                no
        cowbuilder              no

It's no surprise if understanding the packaging system is difficult,
no matter if it were debhelper. 

Jari