On 9/29/05, Mark Rosenstand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:20:37 -0500 > Aaron Griffin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to hear if you indeed do think that none of the suggestions > should get implemented, as you never bothered to tell why - but let's do > it off-list should that be the case.
Well, it's not really that I don't think they're useful or anything, and I do agree the -Qe flags need to do something different, I always believe in prototyping. Let me explain. If we take the "remove all but installed packages" suggestion, it seems simple enough, but it's yet another change that has to be made to pacman and tested (though not *alot* of work, it's still work). Now, lets say this change is made, and it takes two hours of the developer's time, and then you are the only one who uses it (a new -Sci flag or something). That's two hours pretty much wasted, considering that there a few thousand people using pacman right now, and one person using the new feature. With strong prototyping, one provides a patch/script/workaround/whatever and says "hey guys try this out!" - if it doesn't get used, then there's no point in implementing it in the application proper - the handful of users wanting the feature can just use the prototype. If it gets a large response and is used by alot of people, then implementing it is warranted. Just take a look at the pacman-optimize script. It began in the forums, got a decent response, and was moved to the actual pacman package, but still as a script. Now, ignoring the fact that DB improvements have already been made for the next release, as time progressed, eventually pacman-optimize could be moved into pacman's innards. It's much like the AUR now that I think about it. Packages get moved to [community] based on need. If there is no need, the TU wastes his time perfecting a package (NOTE: in some cases people already maintain things for personal use, and have uploaded the package to [community] anyway - I have 3-4 packages like that). But, going back on topic, you can't guage popularity in the AUR until the PKGBUILD is there. You can't just put the name up there and say "hey guys, how about package-xyz?" You have to do a bit of work, a bit of prototyping. I deal with this stuff at work. <hypothetical>"Hey can you add feature XYZ to the app?" Looks like I have to this guy is upper management.....later on I check some log files... in 6 months only the original guy has used this feature and only 3 times. And I spent 3-4 days on it.... what a waste </hypothetical> All of the open source world is based on contribution, not suggestions. People make suggestions to *closed source* applications too (Hey Cerulean Studios, feature X would be great in Trillian!). The difference is that in the OSS world, things get done because people *can* do it and *want* to do it. Most of the time lead developers of a project have thought of your idea before, but they just didn't think it was a big deal. For the record, I haven't contributed anything to pacman because I have no desire to. I have not come across a feature that was so lacking I was motivated enough to deal with it. - phrak _______________________________________________ arch mailing list [email protected] http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
