Re: OT: Re: files list file for package 'man-db' ontains empty filename
On Monday, Nov 4, 2002, at 06:01 Australia/Perth, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:
Cameron MacFarland (cameronm@iinet.net.au) wrote 24 lines:
On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 12:53:23AM -0500, Tristen Hayfield wrote:
I can no longer install/uninstall software using dselect because of
this error. Can anyone help?
Forget it!
Your friend is apt-get.
Why are there always people who do this?
"I have a problem with X. How do I fix it?"
"You don't. Use Y instead."
Because most people want to solve a problem P. P is
something like "get and read my mail" or "be able to recover
from catastrophic disk failure".
Ok, in this case P is "fix dselect" not "install packages"
Now, people don't ask about P. They just assume they can
solve P with tools T_1, ..., T_n, using method M. Then they
run into a problem P_{T_x, M_x} [1]. Now, they are sure that
their choosen toolset and their choosen methodset is A-OK.
Therefore they ask about solving P_{T_x, M_x}.
Now, P_{T_x, M_x} may be easy, hard or impossible to solve.
This is, however, not relevant, for the person who answers
guesses -- most of the time correctly -- what P is, and
answers on that.
So T_x is a subset of T, which is the complete set of tools that can
solve the problem and M_x is the subset of M which is the complete set
of methods to solve the problem.
So you're saying that the response of suggesting an element of T and M
that is not in T_x or M_x (suggesting a tool that the first person
doesn't know about) is a valid response to the question P_(T_x, M_x). I
agree, but you're assumption of what is P is wrong.
Idiots.
So, when you say:
"How do I get my IIS stable? I need to have it running 24/7,
but I get a bluescreen on Win 95 every couple hours or so"
and I answer
"Well, you might try Linux and Apache -- unless you
absolutely *need* some IIS feature -- its far more stable and
secure."
you'll call me an idiot?
No. In this case the thing to fix is IIS. In this case I wouldn't call
you an idiot for your suggestion. But if it went like this:
"How do I fix Win 95 so it doesn't crash?"
"Use Linux."
Then I would.
I'd be an idiot not to tell you that you may get IIS more stable
-- for example switching to 2000 or so -- but something that's
better is right around the corner.
Here, P is (un)installing software.
P is not "install/uninstall using dselect, because nothing else
will do".
P_{dselect} is "install/uninstall using dselect".
Nope. Here is your mistake. I suppose the original comment is
ambiguous. You read it as P="(un)install software" while I read it at
P="fix dselect" since P="fix dselect" will then solve P="(un)install
software".
It depends on the ultimate aim of the question. If the aim of the
question was to gather information to fix dselect then P is what I
said. But if the aim of the question was to get installing software
working then your P is correct. Unfortunately the English language
isn't always precise.
For all we know, there's no reason to use dselect -- if it is,
the asker will say e.g. "Thanks, but I need dselect, because I
want recommendations, which apt-get will not do" ... (in which case
aptitude may be a solution).
Since the asker elected not to explain why zie believes dselect
is (or more exactly, some features of dselect are) neccessary,
any solution for P is a good answer. Unless you believe
everybody knows every existing tool and method and has thought of
them all and thrown all of them out as unworkable.
Again, only if your P is correct. But because of the English language
my P is also valid, which changes the problem.
-Wolfgang
[1] That is a problem doing method M_x with Tool T_x.
You called that "a problem with X".
Cam
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