Re: new version of ocaml packages ...
On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:23:16 +0100
Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org> wrote:
> > Simply, I would like to have ocaml stuff in the same tree ...
> > I'm an ocaml user not a library user...
> > Again, think different, we are NOT SOFTWARE we are USERS ...
> Here we have to think for all users not just for us, well in fact we
> are probably the only debian ocaml users, but anyway ...
> A user that knows a little of ocaml, but a lot of perl, in debian (a
> user that, as you stated, is an _user_ and _not software_) looks for
> libraries in the same manner that he looked in perl, so looking for
> libxxx-ocaml.
looking for libxxx-something does not make sense...
because you may have to look libxxx0g, libxxxg1-dev, libxxx20011203
and so on...
but you look for "xxx" or "[o]caml", so that the three letters 'l i b'
in the name of a package (you are looking for) are useless.
> Currently we have "ocaml-findlib", "ocaml-netstring" and "ocaml-doc"
> all packages follows the same naming schema, but all of them are
> different in kind! We also have "ocaml-tools" and "ocamltk"!
> Surely changing "ocaml-netstring" in "libnetstring-ocaml" and
> "ocamltk" in "libtk-ocaml" helps,
?? do not see why you can say that it would "help"
I never used a command like "apt-cache search lib"...
I always try something like "apt-cache search caml"
> next note that "libtk-ocaml" and
> "libtk-ruby" are very similar, in fact they do the same thing only
> for different languages.
Do you mean that a user (at least, the one you know ;-) may use
libtk-ruby instead of libtk-ocaml since "they do the same thing" ??
Of course not. (mainly because they _don't do the same thing_ ...)
What is the most important for the developer (ooops, the user)
- the fact that he wants to bind his software with tk
or
- the fact that he knows how to develop with ocaml (resp. ruby)
??
Frankly speeaking, the libXXX scheme is rather stupid and useless
for the every day debian's user [he uses goggle or tuxfinder ;-) ]
(may be for the distribution builders but I do not see clearly why
...)
Of course, you (and probably other ocaml-debian developers) will/may
decide to keep this naming scheme, after all, why not.
But, like emacs, LaTeX, and others powerfull tools, the real benefit
is gained when you stop looking backward at the things you used to do
and start looking at the new (and hopefully better) way you will do.
If you don't want to hurt perl/C users, don't tell him to use
OCaml. And if they insist to use OCaml, I think that the package
naming scheme won't be the more difficult thing they will have
to learn :-)
Standards are also made to be improved.
Cheers.
--
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