Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Arch hooks

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Suffield <address@hidden> writes:

    Andrew> Mwahaha. apacheconfig is loathed and detested by
    Andrew> everybody, I think. I'm told the one for apache2 is
    Andrew> significantly less broken.

    Andrew> [...]

    Andrew> Ah, the problem here is that apt is a moronic and horribly
    Andrew> broken pile of code. We know this, even if far too many
    Andrew> users don't :)

    Andrew> (aptitude inherits the braindamage and then adds some of
    Andrew> its own; dselect just calls "apt-get dselect-upgrade" at
    Andrew> present, which is no better)

Exactly.  But the point is that all of this is user-inaccessible
because it's written in an obscure little language implemented in
Perl.  Might as well be compiled to machine code most of the time.

And fixing that is explicitly a design non-goal.  We're trying to
appeal to the Macintrash/Windoze/GookTK crowd, and don't stop to have
a little humility and realize that almost all of them have enough clue
to #ifdef out the call to apacheconfig, if they could only find it.
Or worse, they're just plain intimidated by the complexity of the
surface syntax.  And the so-called "expert" feature really is just a
matter of more questions with more obscure jargon, not a more hands-on
interface for people who know how to do obscure things.

But apt _does_ appeal to "that crowd", and to me, too.  It elides most
of the really annoying but trivial things about handling packages.
apt-get has become my main tool for getting reasonably fresh source to
random packages---you don't need to find a home archive, just "apt-get
-d source $PACKAGE", and you get the dpkg diff and .dsc as a
bonus---they are often very useful.

    Andrew> You don't want to know what happens when it *really* goes
    Andrew> wrong.

Heh.  I've been around for a while; I've edited the status (or was it
the avail?) file by hand to get dselect unwedged.

My bet is that the replacement to apt will fix apt's known problems
but be designed the same way.  Viz dexconf.

This is why I push hard against putting random high level functionality
into tla.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.