Re: FWD: dh_compress
On Tue, Nov 02, 1999 at 02:19:26AM +0100, Laurent Martelli wrote:
> >>>>> "Joey" == Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> writes:
>
> Joey> Policy says that "small" files should be compressed, but does
> Joey> not define small. The default blocksize seems like a good
> Joey> definition. What is the default blocksize? 1k? 4k? Variable? I
> Joey> have heard all three answers.
>
> Joey> I'm considering changing debhelper to compress doc files > 1k,
> Joey> which is surely the smallest block size anyone might have, but
> Joey> I'd like some input from this group about what polciy actually
> Joey> means, first.
>
> Shouldn't all programs that can display doc files handle compressed
> files natively ? Having to manually uncompress the file or use a
> special command that handles compressed files is unconvenient,
> especially for beginners who might even not be able to read those
> files.
Laurent, it doesn't actually seem to work that way -- I often use "cat" to
view documents, but if cat were to start decompressing any files ending with
.gz or .bz2 or whatever, I think I would be upset. I more often use "more"
or "less" to read documents, and if either of those were to decompress
everything read, I imagine someone out there would be upset. Of course, vim
*does* decompress files, and I don't see anyone up in arms about it one way
or the other. I sort of like it, actually.
If someone wants to view a compressed document file, they can use vim to
decompress it and edit it, or they can use "zless" or they can gunzip -dc |
less or .. however else they like to view files.
For beginners, we have the dwww package, which (iirc) converts any document
format popularly in use, be it compressed text, text, html, (compressed
html?), man pages, (cat pages?), all into a format suitable for display on a
web browser. (Info pages?) (TeX?) (ps?) (dvi?) Also, beginners can grab any
half-way decent linux book that describes what various file extensions mean
and how to get at the data inside.. or at least, when I started, the popular
books at the time included that information...
And to Joey -- I can't see a point to compressing files under 1k. (on disk,
it will save no space, and on download, it will save a maximum of about 996
bytes -- a very theoretical savings, since it requires all 1024 characters
to be the same... :) I can see a point to compressing files that are less
than 4k -- on someone's computer, it will save space, and on other people's
computers, the cost is negligible.
And, of course, all this is IMHO, and IANADD(Y). :)
Thanks
--
Seth Arnold | http://www.willamette.edu/~sarnold/
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