Re: Apology to the authors of helper packages
Hi,
>>"Joey" == Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> writes:
Joey> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> I have exressed what I felt lacking in the scripts before. For
>> example, none of them seems to have a dry run option. so I can see
>> what is going on without actually doing anything.
Joey> All debhelper scripts have this option.
>> My problem is that I think it is too easy to get dependent on these
>> scripts, and not know exactly what goes on underneath. One never
>> learns that way.
Joey> That's why all debhelper scripts have a -v option, and an
Joey> environment variable, to make them generate a listing of every
Joey> single command they run (and this is prominently marked in the
Joey> example rules files for debhelper).
Heh. That takes care of one of my major objections to the
helper packages. The opacity of the helpers was a major
bugbear. Maybe it is time to install this and have another look.
>> Second objection: The way the helper scrips are coded, amke the
>> package dependent on them; if a different version exists on a
>> target machine, the package may not build
Joey> Which is why I've introduced dh_checkversion, for those cases
Joey> where you really need a specific version of debhelper.
How often to the interfaces to the scripts change? Is there a
design document or something for them? (I have an uneasy feeling that
the scripts may just have evolved, rather than being formally
designed [nothing wrong with that -- most of my packages have evolved
too]).
Joey> I feel source dependancies are really the way to fix
Joey> this.
Probably.
Joey> Anyway, there are many examples of this same problem
Joey> completely unrelated to helper scripts - remember when patch's
Joey> usage changed and broke dpkg-source?
Yes, and in some ways, one should try to reduce these external
dependencies. Also, the problem with a multitude of scripts doing
little tasks is that one has to learn about all the scripts and the
arguments; (like learning a [simple] new language).
To counter that complexity is the fact that there is a common
code base that can be debugged and made robust centrally; and can be
the before-the-fact arm of policy conformance code (lintian being the
after the fact arm)
>> The helper script generates make snippets that are called
>> ./debian/snippets/blah.dist. If I want to modify it, I copy
>> ./debian/snippets/blah.dist to ./debian/snippets/blah. The rules
>> file is changed to include ./debian/snippets/blah if it exists, or
>> else include ./debian/snippets/blah.dist.
Joey> The problem with this proposal is that as the snippets develop,
Joey> become robust, gain some features, you end up with, on average,
Joey> about 500 lines of extra stuff in debian/snippets (number
Joey> roughly based on the number of lines in debstd). Bloat. No worse
Joey> than the debian/rules.in type proposals, though.
94 /usr/local/src/Work/angband-doc/debian/rules
95 /usr/local/src/Work/cvs-buildpackage/debian/rules
108 /usr/local/src/Work/miscfiles/debian/rules
115 /usr/local/src/Work/pkg-order/debian/rules
117 /usr/local/src/Work/libcgi-perl/debian/rules
117 /usr/local/src/Work/sgml-base/debian/rules
128 /usr/local/src/Work/kernel-package/debian/rules
128 /usr/local/src/Work/psgml/debian/rules
155 /usr/local/src/Work/vm/debian/rules
158 /usr/local/src/Work/c2man/debian/rules
161 /usr/local/src/Work/angband/debian/rules
170 /usr/local/src/Work/mailagent/agent/test/rules
172 /usr/local/src/Work/make/debian/rules
178 /usr/local/src/Work/dist/debian/rules
186 /usr/local/src/Work/latex2html/debian/rules
191 /usr/local/src/Work/mailagent/debian/rules
634 /usr/local/src/Work/kernel-package/kernel/rules
Mean = 171 +/- 29.9454160294
standard deviation = 123.468113293
Without the kernel/rules file:
Mean = 142.0625 +/- 8.20135596004
standard deviation = 32.8054238401
500 is a bit much, don't you think? These rules file do not
use any helper packages. I'd say that the correct figure should lie
somewhere in between 150 lines ad 500 lines. And some of that would
be required anyway.
However. I am unlikely to change unless there is a strong move
to link a helper package to policy enforcement (I like my rules files
well enough); and unless I an convinced of significant benefit to the
process. I do feel better about the helper packages than I used to.
manoj
--
Gummidge's Law: The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion
to the number of statements understood by the general public.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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