Georges Khaznadar wrote:
> thank you for this first review. I attach a new version of the control file,
> please do cricize it: I shall publish it after your second review.
Okay, here's round two!
> Package: wims
[...]
> Description: server for educational content: courses, exercises, and exams
> WIMS is an initialism for WWW Interactive Multipurpose Server.
Oh yes, wims.unice.fr agrees with you on "WWW".
If you spell it out there's no need to also say what exact kind of
abbreviation it is (besides, come to think of it, I don't really know
whether it's officially wrong to read it out as an acronym anyway).
Just start by introducing it as the WWW Interactive Multipurpose
Server; it's self-evident why the W, I, M, and S are capitalised.
The reason I suggested moving the phrase "educational platform" here
is that the long description should start with a clear summary of what
general kind of a thing WIMS is (the expansion of its name doesn't
really work as an explanation, since for a start it's a retrofit).
> Currently, WIMS supports mathematical content and also physics,
> chemistry, biology, languages, etc.
Saying "and also" like that is just going to make people wonder why
you nearly forgot to mention most of the subjects. Either it's
interesting that WIMS started with mathematics or it isn't...
Maybe:
The WWW Interactive Multipurpose Server is an educational platform
originally developed for mathematics but now also supporting subjects such
as physics, chemistry, biology, and languages.
> .
> The WIMS educational platform features a rich set of resources and
> exercises either for autodidactical use or for training classes. Here
> is a list of features :
"Autodidactical" is a rather obscure vocabulary item, but I suppose
that'll make the English teachers happy! There's just one new
outright language error here: no space before colon in English. Also,
since the first sentence is about the things WIMS *features* it seems
clumsy to add a whole extra sentence just to say that the following is
a list of *features*. Fixing that and taking into account the
promotion I'm giving to the phrase "educational platform" it's:
.
WIMS features a rich set of resources and exercises either for
autodidactical use or for training classes, including:
> .
> * exercises with automatic feedback and correction, allowing the
> learners to work at their own pace;
> * interactive exercises with randomly assigned data, allowing the
> learners to work on the same type of exercise but with different
> data and as often as they wish;
> * exercises with an automatic scoring system, which enhances learner
> motivation;
> * user-friendly graphics and calculation tools;
> * courses and documents with hyperlinks to the exercise pool;
> examples in the courses can be made random, so the student can get
> more than one instance of an illustration for tricky concepts;
> * support for exams with pre-published contents. As each individual
> exam will have randomly chosen data, training is possible but
> writing each response in advance is not.
> .
> This package contains the WIMS FastCGI server, serving Open Exercise
> Format (OEF) documents. OEF is a very high-level language which
> allows authors to focus on pedagogical issues.
No complaints about any of this now.
> Package: wims-modules
[...]
> Description: minimal set of modules used by WIMS
Okay.
> Wims' modules implement every user interface beyond its main page,
> the non exhaustive list of the features is: administrative tasks, help,
> and a few interactive exercises, mathematic tools, libraries ...
Repeating the things I pointed out last time:
* where it means the suite as a whole, "Wims" should be "WIMS";
* the normal idiomatic possessive of WIMS would be WIMS's;
* but it probably doesn't need to be a possessive anyway;
* "WIMS uses modules to implement [...]" would be clearer;
* the second line is a "run-on" sentence;
* "non exhaustive" needs a hyphen;
* but it's clunky anyway - just say "including";
* yet another conjunction shortage (or no, it's just misplaced);
* it would read better if the most complex item was last.
Oh, and a point I didn't explicitly mention last time: it seems odd to
call "administrative tasks" a feature. If this is a list of types of
interface module, it would make more sense just to let the sentence
about modules lead directly into the list:
WIMS uses modules to implement every user interface beyond its main page,
including administrative tasks, help, mathematic tools, libraries, and a
few interactive exercises.
> .
> To get the thousands of exercices which make the power of WIMS,
> consider installing the recommended package wims-extra-all (or other
> packages which provide wims-extra).
You've still got that recurring typo: s/exercice/exercise/.
"Make the power of" smells slightly babelfishy - I'd suggest something
like "give WIMS its power". But why is this advert for wims-extra*
attached to wims-modules rather than wims? Admins are likely enough
to read the package description for wims when they're deciding whether
to install it, but they're less likely to study the descriptions of
the packages automatically pulled in as dependencies.
> .
> Other educational contents can be downloaded outside of the Debian
> system by automated updates. See http://www.wimsedu.info
"Contents" is (borderline) wrong, and switching to a non-count-noun
"content" has the annoying knock-on effect of making "other" wrong.
The quickest fix is s/contents/materials/.
Are these extra *modules* or would it again make more sense to include
this information as a bullet point on the wims feature list?
And as I said, "http://www.wimsedu.info"; is an alias for plain
"http://wimsedu.info";.
> Package: wims-java-applets
[...]
> Description: applets for modules used by the WIMS server
Just for consistency, say "used by WIMS".
> Wims' modules implement every user interface beyond its main page.
> Some of them depend on Java applets; this package features the collection
> of free applets which are maintained upstream.
> .
> Some interesting applets like Jmol are missing, since they still cannot
> be built from their source with free/libre compilers. You can get them
> from their upstream developers.
That first line still has all the same problems, but otherwise it's
much better; I'd just suggest s/features/provides/.
> Package: flydraw
[...]
> Description: command-line drawing tool
> flydraw is a drawing tool based on an interpreter which parses a
> language featuring rich graphic primitives; it uses libgd to output
> PNG, JPG, or GIF files.
In theory "graphic" primitives would mean primitives that are vividly
pictorial (or, in a bizarre semantic pile-up, purely written!), so it
ought to be either the adjective "graphical" or the attributive noun
"graphics". But Google says you'll get away with it.
I'd still recommend s/JPG/JPEG/, though. And if I'm changing the
line, why not sort them into some sort of order?
--
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
Source: wims
Section: web
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Georges Khaznadar <[email protected]>
Build-Depends: quilt, debhelper (>= 7.4.19), texlive-base, po-debconf,
libgd2-xpm-dev|libgd2-noxpm-dev, autoconf2.59|autoconf, automake1.9|automake,
openjdk-6-jdk [alpha amd64 armel i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc],
ant [alpha amd64 armel i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc]
Standards-Version: 3.9.3
Package: wims
Architecture: any
Pre-Depends: adduser
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends},
imagemagick (>= 4:5.4.4.5-1)|graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat,
pari-gp, gnuplot, maxima (>=5.26.0), maxima-share,
octave3.0|octave, fortunes,
texlive-base, texlive-latex-base, texlive-fonts-recommended,
mailutils| mailx, units-filter (>=3.5), chemeq (>=2.7), graphviz,
libjs-prototype, libjs-mootools, ldap-utils,
apache2|apache, wims-modules (>=4.01c)
Recommends: yacas, gap, wims-help, wims-java-applets
Suggests: wims-extra-all|wims-extra
Conflicts: wims-common (<<3.55), libwims (<<3.55), wims-modules-fr (<<3.55),
wims-extra(<<3.62-4), wims-modules-es(<<3.62-4)
Replaces: wims-common (<<3.55), libwims (<<3.55), wims-modules-fr (<<3.55),
wims-modules-es(<<3.62-4)
Provides: wims-modules-fr, wims-modules-es
Description: server for educational content: courses, exercises, and exams
The WWW Interactive Multipurpose Server is an educational platform
originally developed for mathematics but now also supporting subjects such
as physics, chemistry, biology, and languages.
.
WIMS features a rich set of resources and exercises either for
autodidactical use or for training classes, including:
.
* exercises with automatic feedback and correction, allowing the
learners to work at their own pace;
* interactive exercises with randomly assigned data, allowing the
learners to work on the same type of exercise but with different
data and as often as they wish;
* exercises with an automatic scoring system, which enhances learner
motivation;
* user-friendly graphics and calculation tools;
* courses and documents with hyperlinks to the exercise pool;
examples in the courses can be made random, so the student can get
more than one instance of an illustration for tricky concepts;
* support for exams with pre-published contents. As each individual
exam will have randomly chosen data, training is possible but
writing each response in advance is not.
.
This package contains the WIMS FastCGI server, serving Open Exercise
Format (OEF) documents. OEF is a very high-level language which
allows authors to focus on pedagogical issues.
Package: wims-modules
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: minimal set of modules used by WIMS
WIMS uses modules to implement every user interface beyond its main page,
including administrative tasks, help, mathematic tools, libraries, and a
few interactive exercises.
.
To get the thousands of exercises which give WIMS its power, consider
installing the recommended package wims-extra-all (or other packages
which provide wims-extra).
.
Other educational materials can be downloaded outside of the Debian
system by automated updates. See http://wimsedu.info
Package: wims-java-applets
Architecture: alpha amd64 armel i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: applets for modules used by WIMS
WIMS uses modules to implement every user interface beyond its main page.
Some of them depend on Java applets; this package provides the collection
of free applets which are maintained upstream.
.
Some interesting applets like Jmol are missing, since they still cannot
be built from their source with free/libre compilers. You can get them
from their upstream developers.
Package: flydraw
Section: graphics
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends},
imagemagick (>= 4:5.4.4.5-1)|graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat
Description: command-line drawing tool
flydraw is a drawing tool based on an interpreter which parses a
language featuring rich graphic primitives; it uses libgd to output
GIF, JPEG, or PNG files.
--- control.gk 2012-06-24 11:23:24.799392773 +0100
+++ control.jbr 2012-06-24 13:28:42.739392580 +0100
@@ -27,13 +27,12 @@
wims-modules-es(<<3.62-4)
Provides: wims-modules-fr, wims-modules-es
Description: server for educational content: courses, exercises, and exams
- WIMS is an initialism for WWW Interactive Multipurpose Server.
- Currently, WIMS supports mathematical content and also physics,
- chemistry, biology, languages, etc.
- .
- The WIMS educational platform features a rich set of resources and
- exercises either for autodidactical use or for training classes. Here
- is a list of features :
+ The WWW Interactive Multipurpose Server is an educational platform
+ originally developed for mathematics but now also supporting subjects such
+ as physics, chemistry, biology, and languages.
+ .
+ WIMS features a rich set of resources and exercises either for
+ autodidactical use or for training classes, including:
.
* exercises with automatic feedback and correction, allowing the
learners to work at their own pace;
@@ -58,23 +57,23 @@
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: minimal set of modules used by WIMS
- Wims' modules implement every user interface beyond its main page,
- the non exhaustive list of the features is: administrative tasks, help,
- and a few interactive exercises, mathematic tools, libraries ...
- .
- To get the thousands of exercices which make the power of WIMS,
- consider installing the recommended package wims-extra-all (or other
- packages which provide wims-extra).
+ WIMS uses modules to implement every user interface beyond its main page,
+ including administrative tasks, help, mathematic tools, libraries, and a
+ few interactive exercises.
+ .
+ To get the thousands of exercises which give WIMS its power, consider
+ installing the recommended package wims-extra-all (or other packages
+ which provide wims-extra).
.
- Other educational contents can be downloaded outside of the Debian
- system by automated updates. See http://www.wimsedu.info
+ Other educational materials can be downloaded outside of the Debian
+ system by automated updates. See http://wimsedu.info
Package: wims-java-applets
Architecture: alpha amd64 armel i386 ia64 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
-Description: applets for modules used by the WIMS server
- Wims' modules implement every user interface beyond its main page.
- Some of them depend on Java applets; this package features the collection
+Description: applets for modules used by WIMS
+ WIMS uses modules to implement every user interface beyond its main page.
+ Some of them depend on Java applets; this package provides the collection
of free applets which are maintained upstream.
.
Some interesting applets like Jmol are missing, since they still cannot
@@ -89,5 +88,4 @@
Description: command-line drawing tool
flydraw is a drawing tool based on an interpreter which parses a
language featuring rich graphic primitives; it uses libgd to output
- PNG, JPG, or GIF files.
-
+ GIF, JPEG, or PNG files.
