Re: OT: Re: files list file for package 'man-db' ontains empty filename

[Cameron MacFarland]

On Monday, Nov 4, 2002, at 06:01 Australia/Perth, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:

Cameron MacFarland ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote 24 lines:

On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 12:53:23AM -0500, Tristen Hayfield wrote:

I can no longer install/uninstall software using dselect because of
this error.  Can anyone help?

Forget it!
Your friend is apt-get.

Why are there always people who do this?

"I have a problem with X. How do I fix it?"
"You don't. Use Y instead."

Because most people want to solve a problem P.  P is
something like "get and read my mail" or "be able to recover
from catastrophic disk failure".

Ok, in this case P is "fix dselect" not "install packages"

Now, people don't ask about P.  They just assume they can
solve P with tools T_1, ..., T_n, using method M.  Then they
run into a problem P_{T_x, M_x} [1].  Now, they are sure that
their choosen toolset and their choosen methodset is A-OK.
Therefore they ask about solving P_{T_x, M_x}.

Now, P_{T_x, M_x} may be easy, hard or impossible to solve.
This is, however, not relevant, for the person who answers
guesses -- most of the time correctly -- what P is, and
answers on that.

So T_x is a subset of T, which is the complete set of tools that can solve the problem and M_x is the subset of M which is the complete set of methods to solve the problem.

So you're saying that the response of suggesting an element of T and M that is not in T_x or M_x (suggesting a tool that the first person doesn't know about) is a valid response to the question P_(T_x, M_x). I agree, but you're assumption of what is P is wrong.

Idiots.

So, when you say:
    "How do I get my IIS stable?  I need to have it running 24/7,
    but I get a bluescreen on Win 95 every couple hours or so"
and I answer
    "Well, you might try Linux and Apache -- unless you
    absolutely *need* some IIS feature -- its far more stable and
    secure."
you'll call me an idiot?

No. In this case the thing to fix is IIS. In this case I wouldn't call you an idiot for your suggestion. But if it went like this:
"How do I fix Win 95 so it doesn't crash?"
"Use Linux."
Then I would.

I'd be an idiot not to tell you that you may get IIS more stable
-- for example switching to 2000 or so -- but something that's
better is right around the corner.

Here, P is (un)installing software.
P is not "install/uninstall using dselect, because nothing else
  will do".
P_{dselect} is "install/uninstall using dselect".

Nope. Here is your mistake. I suppose the original comment is ambiguous. You read it as P="(un)install software" while I read it at P="fix dselect" since P="fix dselect" will then solve P="(un)install software".

It depends on the ultimate aim of the question. If the aim of the question was to gather information to fix dselect then P is what I said. But if the aim of the question was to get installing software working then your P is correct. Unfortunately the English language isn't always precise.

For all we know, there's no reason to use dselect -- if it is,
the asker will say e.g. "Thanks, but I need dselect, because I
want recommendations, which apt-get will not do" ... (in which case
aptitude may be a solution).

Since the asker elected not to explain why zie believes dselect
is (or more exactly, some features of dselect are) neccessary,
any solution for P is a good answer.  Unless you believe
everybody knows every existing tool and method and has thought of
them all and thrown all of them out as unworkable.

Again, only if your P is correct. But because of the English language my P is also valid, which changes the problem.

-Wolfgang

[1] That is a problem doing method M_x with Tool T_x.
    You called that "a problem with X".

Cam


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