The instantiation of free classications on ac macros in the ac-archive is a good approach, I was always interested in being able to discriminate ac-macros in multiple ways but the current repository and submission format was not suited very well for that.
The xml format is surely not easy for users to handle directly, and the processing in the gnu ac-archive seems to be using tools that are not usually present on user systems (some 'ghc' I have not have heard of, the makesystem resources are currently not present anymore in the savannah cvs). That makes it not easy to format/preview macros locally on a user system. I would like to attempt to define an extension to the classic format that allows to classify macros in multiple ways. We should here follow the classic format as close as possibly and invent a new tex-like setting, something like @category Installed Packages, experimental The point is just to get a list of proposed category types that submitters shall pick from - reading and formatting such a classic format can be done as simple as with a perl macro like it is done in the sfnet branch using macro2html.pl. Peter Simon did already propose a very good choice which matches the current situation of the ac-archive:
As for the new categorization ... Currently we have these:
C Support
Properties of the C compiler.
C++ Support
Properties of the C++ compiler.
Java Support
Properties of the Java Environment.
Cross Compilation
Really advanced stuff.
Installed Packages
How to I link OpenGL? Where are the header files? And while
we're at it ... What is OpenGL?
Miscellaneous
Catch all
New ones that I would consider to be useful are:
System Headers
Tests for the existence of "foobar.h", or whether it defines
"foo_bar_t" or not, etc.
System Utilities
Does the "foo" program support the "--bar" flag? Is it
installed at all? What version of the Intel C++ compiler do I
have?
Build Infrastructure
Generate a "foobar-config" script, cool Autoconf extensions,
etc.
Adding to that "topic" categorization, I would like to see status types experimental updated reviewed ubiquitous comments? proposals? critics? -- cheers, guido
