| Tilo Schwarz 2004-10-07, 7:49 am |
| On Thursday 07 October 2004 11:46, Frank K=FCster wrote:
> Tilo Schwarz <list@tilo-schwarz.de> wrote:
>
> The misunderstanding is that, since bundle has a meaning for
> developers (in a GNUstep context), you read it as 'What is a
> ".bundle"'. I must admit that I wasn't really interested in the
> answer.
Now I know ;-)
> What I meant was: 'What is the message you want to send to the user
> by naming a package "foo.bundle" instead of "foo"'. It seems to me
> the answer is: "There is no message". So my comment is: Why not keep
> it out of the name (after choosing a sensible name for the
> application in the first place)?
Yes, I understand the argument, but let's try to get the discussion a=20
bit more general.
As I said, as a happy Debian user I don't care at all what package name=20
a package has (except, maybe, it shouldn't be too long to type). You=20
might think, well - strange user - but let me try to explain:
=46rom a techical point of view a package name is a key to identify a=20
package. This key can be fed to various tools (like dpkg, BTS,=20
apt-cache, ...) to perform some action. The key must be unique, but=20
that's about it (besides some rules about the characters to be used, I=20
guess). So for the about 16185 packages in Sarge it would suffice to=20
have package names with just three letters (26^3 =3D 17576). (BTW, there=20
are more than 1000 packages in Sarge having <=3D four letters).
Now with the package name all the package (meta-) data can be accessed.=20
A simple "apt-cache show foo" gives me all kinds of information besides=20
the important Description:-field which is the semantics associated with=20
the "key" package name. If I search for a package I use something like=20
"apt-cache search X terminal emulator" and get a nice output with lines=20
like (besides others)=20
aterm - Afterstep XVT - a VT102 emulator for the X window system
lynx - Text-mode WWW Browser
rxvt - VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System
terminal - Terminal Emulator for GNUstep
wterm - An rxvt based, color xterm replacement
I don't mind what "key" is used, the one line description sais it all.=20
So for me as a user the package name doesn't matter, the package=20
description (and the other meta-data) matters.
So this nameing discussion is about what package data should be mangled=20
into the package name, in this case especially what dependency data.=20
With the same reasoning I could ask to mangle any other information=20
from the package data into its name (like section, maintainer,=20
whatever), because there always someone who likes to see that=20
information. But there's no need to do that, because there are tools to=20
extract that information right away. E.g. aptitude gives me the most=20
important stuff with a single keypress.
To conclude, I'd be still a happy Debian user even if Sarge would be=20
released with just three letter package names ;-).
Regards,
Tilo
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