Re: The Helper Rant

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@mekinok.com>]

>>>>> "Gergely" == Gergely Nagy <algernon@debian.org> writes:
    Gergely> tend to fall deeper into that pit. As an example, when
    Gergely> there's no install target in the original Makefile, they
    Gergely> patch it. Even if it would be an `install -m 0755 foo
    Gergely> debian/foo/usr/bin/bar' line in debian/rules' install
    Gergely> target. No, they go and patch the Makefile instead,
    Gergely> introducing a great deal of junk into the diff.


Which is arguably correct, especially if they plan on sending the
change upstream.  Disk is cheap and on the scales we are talking about
here, bandwith is not horribly expensive.  If I think the bug is in
the upstream code, and I'm going to fix it in a clean manner, then
I'll fix it in the upstream code.  This is especially true if I plan
to send the change back, but is often true even if I don't.  I try to
make it be the case that I'd rather build a package on a non-Debian
system with the Debian diff applied (not using the debian rules file
of course) than without.

I think that by enforcing these types of constraints we are going
beyond our charter.  Our job is to make sure that people have the
necessary skills to be Debian developers, not to enforce a particular
packaging style that we can't even agree is a good idea.


That said, I'll agree that understanding space tradeoffs is an
important skill.  I certainly will keep your points in mind and make
sure applicants I deal with understand these types of tradeoffs and
can justify their decisions.


P.S.  I think I disagree about removing the commented out debhelper
commands.  I believe thbelieve the space they take up is justified by
the convenience of enabling the feature/remembering the existence of
the feature when it is useful.  I recognize this is more a statement
on how much I value saving space than anything else.