Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> Note that for users of your mirrors, the name transparently
> remains your original archive name (without the `-MIRROR' thing),
> which is really neat.
I personally dislike the `-MIRROR' and `-SOURCE' special-casing. I
found it hard to understand (especially when looking at the online
doc where it is unclear whether the capital letters denote
[EMAIL PROTECTED]' in Texinfo terms, or whether they should be taken
literally), plus it leaves the impression that each archive can
only have one mirror.
I agree, and I was specially reminded just recently why I also dislike
it.
I don't think that there's any doubt but that it's a mis-feature.
It violates some principle of good taste or good design to give
archive names internal structure like that. The particular syntax
is appalling. Now that I don't use it every day I find that even I
wind up looking it up and taking three tries to use it correctly.
There's really nothing good about it.
I'm sure I can see how it happened: I must have been too lazy
or too rushed on a given day to make the archive registration
database fancier.
It would be better if all related archives had the same name, if
the database (in ~/.arch-params) kept track of source/mirror
relations, if there was indeed a command to update all mirrors
at once, if writes went automatically to the appropriate archive,
and if there were a command-line syntax for indicating a
specific mirror or source archive when many have the same
name. I vaguely recall the idea being discussed on the list
some time ago but apparently not at a time that anybody felt
like working on it.
-t
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