On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 07:50:39PM -0400, Damon L. Chesser wrote: > On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 16:23 -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 07:00:52PM -0400, Damon L. Chesser wrote: > > > On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 06:58 -0700, Daniel Burrows wrote: > > > > On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 03:11:39AM +0200, "s. keeling" <keeling@nucleus.com> was heard to say: > > > > > I've no trouble with either at the command line. The *curses > > > > > interface is highly non-intuitive (IMO). It, along with dselect, has > > > > > always struck me as just a little Martian. That's fine in vi or emacs > > > > > that you use all the time (so you learn it), but in a pkg mgr? > > > > > > > > Are there any terminal applications that you think are not Martian? I > > > > don't have a good handle on what you mean there. If you just mean that > > > > you have to learn the keystrokes ... that's probably not going to > > > > change; with the limited screen real estate on a terminal, I can't > > > > afford to put in buttons on everything. > > > > > > > > > So, Daniel, _consider_ (thanks :-) a wholesale interface re-design > > > > > (you've free rein), or offer choice of old or new via command line > > > > > switch, or something, a la view vs. vi? IFF "--new" is found on CL, > > > > > give 'em the new one? What'll the old one say when it sees that? > > > > > Hmm. Gotta be a better way. Env. var? > > > > > > > > One of my active anti-goals is making aptitude the best package > > > > manager after you enter 500 configuration options to enable all the > > > > useful features. (hello, mutt) The new code will be the default > > > > behavior, with configuration options to selectively re-enable old > > > > behavior for people who prefer it. c.f. the change in the behavior > > > > of the installation commands several years ago. > > > > > > > > Daniel > > > > > > Daniel, > > > > > > I would suggest you use EMACS as a front end. > > > > oh that's a fabulous idea, but think about it. Something as obscure > > and hard to understand as aptitude is screaming to have vi as a > > frontend. > > > > A > > You had better put on your fire protective suit. I have three daughters. there is nothing you guys can do to me that will ever hurt worse than that! all in fun... Just for the record, since all my responses to this thread have been pretty snarky, I'm a fan of aptitude. I agree the interface is, umm... cryptic at first, but with a little practice, it's remarkably practical at what it does. But it's real power is under the covers. Why just yesterday as I was upgrading a machine that was woefully behind (700 sid packages, ugh) it several times hit the... error, trying to recover, and did. There was none of the repeated application of apt-get -f install foo, or whatever, that used to plague large upgrades with apt-get. A
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