Re: Nitpicking: you are doing it wrong
Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> writes:
> On 07/09/2011 05:14 AM, Gergely Nagy wrote:
>> I believe that when someone knows the underlying system, using helpers
>> is the way to go, because it makes not only your task easier, it also
>> makes it easier for others to understand the packaging.
>>
> We were talking about mentoring, and you are talking about someone "who
> knows the underlying system", and we should generalize and push them to
> use dh because of that. Isn't there is something wrong here?
I thought we were talking about sponsoring. Which is not the same as
mentoring. There are people who have good knowledge of debian package
building, yet, are sponsored.
But even if it's one's first package, I'd rather push them towards dh as
a starting point, becuase that's _simple_. Getting to know the
underlying system takes time, and when you expose a new contributor to
that, he might very well run away.
In short, one needs to find out on a case by case basis which would be
better. I see no point pushing someone who already has 10+ packages in
Debian towards dh7, when he'd much rather just be done with it and use
dh8.
On the other hand, when someone's obviously inexperienced, and makes
silly mistakes, explaining that mistake, and suggesting to play with dh7
(or even helper less) to understand the system better might be a good
approach.
But neither fits all cases.
>> NMUing something with a complex, home-built debian/rules is a pain in
>> the backside at best.
>>
> Come on! It's not. Most debian/rules using debhelper (and not CDBS or dh)
> looks nearly the same, with very little tweaks.
Most dh7 packages look similar enough, yes. Those are the least of one's
worries, though.
Nor do these fall under the 'complex, home-built debian/rules' category.
>> I don't know about you, but for 5 seconds, I'm not going to give up
>> convenience.
>>
> It really depends. If the package is really small, and if it takes 6
> seconds in total
> to build, then skipping 5 seconds is a win. If it takes anyway 2
> minutes, then
> yes, I don't care about 5 seconds.
5 seconds never matters. Ever. Not even if that 5 seconds is 90% of the
build time. It won't stall the buildds, it won't make any difference at
all.
>> Then again, the beauty of Debian is that people are allowed to tailor
>> their packaging to their own liking (as long as it conforms to
>> policy... sadly a debian/rules written in SHOOP does not). There's
>> arguments for and against both helper-using and helper-less packaging,
>> neither is a silver bullet.
>>
> My point to give arguments about not using dh was *not* to start a troll
> thread about what is best practices. It was simply to tell that there
> are some
> arguments for and against using dh,
Agreed, there are arguments for and against dh. There's more for it than
against it, though, and if one chooses to use dh, in the vast majority
of cases, he shouldn't be discouraged, in my opinion.
> For this, Jakub is 100% right. At best, this would be a sponsor
> requirement (and for sure, it wont be mine, which is only to not use
> CDBS which I don't understand).
>
> So don't take me wrong. I'm not vouching *against* dh, in some cases I
> agree it might be convenient, but just not always, and at the end,
> it's more a mater of preferences.
We seem to agree then, it's just our preferences lying on other sides of
the fence ;)
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