Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: taglines vs explicit

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Collins <address@hidden> writes:

    Robert> I'm not sure we're on the same page here.

Apparently not.  I'm talking about where arch stores tags (suffixes)
and whether ordinary activities of users can cause confusion by
altering them or storing them in multiple places.  tagline allows
tag-lines in files, and there are plenty of scenarios where either
extraneous tags could get added or an existing tag-line (which is
actually a tag's implementation, ie, storage) get munged.

I have no idea what "same sample problem" you're going on about.  I
will say that the fact that we need three separate words to describe
the idea of "tag" here is indicative of design breakage.  (Which may
very well go all the way down into the Unix idea of a file system, of
course---arch may have no real alternatives except complexity and
assorted workarounds.)

    Robert> adding another tag (of the converse type) will cause
    Robert> confusion at a minimum, and weird breakage at worst.

And this will only happen in explicit if the user edits a file in
.arch-ids, which seems kinda perverse.

    Robert> That point I've no quarrel with per se. I'm not sure it's
    Robert> beyond a few lines of descriptive paragraph to resolve.

That will be useful in guaranteeing that violators suffer from
universal derision :-), but won't do much for prevention.

-- 
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.