Re: Lintian pickiness and packaging improvements
On Fri, Oct 23 2009, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> On Thursday 22 October 2009 22:37:54 Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 22 2009, Raphael Geissert wrote:
>> > Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> >> I also think that style issues should not be a part of even
>> >> Pedantic checks. If a package is using a different, and arguably
>> >> better style, then lintian should keep its nose out.
>> >
>> > If there's a better style I guess nobody would object to consider
>> > recommend it or
>>
>> You are not getting it. Better is subjective.
>
> That's not always true. Better can be subjective, but it can also be
> objective.
A packaging style, by definition, is subjective. I would not be
called a style other wise.
> If a style scores better on all the metrics we care about that another
> style, it is objectively better. If a style has advantages over
> another, but the other does not have an advantage over the first, the
> first style is objectively better.
Given that we are talking about subjective issues to start with,
the criteria for judging these are also subjective. The metrics are
subjective, and the whole thing is hand waving and a wash of psuedo
objectivity.
>
>> You can have a
>> dozen "better" styles, all contradictory. Are you planning on having
>> checks that can never all be met simultaneously? That is what you get
>> when you go for subjectively "better" styles.
>
> We shouldn't warn on subjectively better style, but be should warn on
> objectively poor style.
I think that here objective and style is an oxymoron.
>> Here is an excerpt from aptitude (lines edited to remove size
>> and version info for email):
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> i kernel-package A utility for building Linux kernel related Debian
>> packages. i module-assistant tool to make module package creation easier
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> Frankly, I like the
>> Package-Name: A short sentence with a period.
>> way better. The front ends have never started to display the short
>> descriptions as though they were noun phrases
>
> Neither of those are a sentence.
Shrug. I see it as I said:
Package-Name: A short sentence with a period.
While you correctly assert, somewhat pedantically, that "A short
sentence with a period." is not a sentence, I assert that it looks
better.
> The first lacks a verb (or verb phrase). The second also lacks a
> period and capital letter, but that actually makes it *easier* to use
> in an actual sentence, since it doesn't have to be modified to be used
> as a noun phrase.
Irrelevant, seeing that in a decade and a half no one has done
anything to take short descriptions into a sentence.
manoj
--
His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda
water. P.G. Wodehouse
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Reply to: