On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Robert Connolly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello. Recently the lfs-dev mailing list seems to have decided to flip from > xml to php, and to add rpm spec files for all packages so that a package > manager can optionally be dropped in. Boot and Udev scripts have also been > integrated into the book. > > I may have mentioned it before... I hate xml. It's nice to look at the html, > it stores information well, but despite the generous help and maintenance > from Manuel, I hate maintaining an xml book and I seriously doubt I will like > php any better.
Applause for the "I hate xml", that makes me smile. > > I want to bring us back to 1969, with a plain text book. In a single tarball > have the book, boot scripts, maybe patches too, separated by directories > instead of links. Pages for packages can be written with #comments so they > can be run as shell scripts to install packages. Each package has a > directory, with it's patches (if any), grsecurity policy for the programs, > and file lists for tripwire (and/or package manager). > > So the Inetutils package could have a chap6 directory like: > > chap6/inetutils > chap6/inetutils/chap6-inetutils.txt (shell script) > chap6/inetutils/inetutils-1.5-fixes-2.patch > chap6/inetutils/ftp.grsec_policy > chap6/inetutils/ping.grsec_policy > chap6/inetutils/talk.grsec_policy > chap6/inetutils/telnet.grsec_policy > chap6/inetutils/tftp.grsec_policy > chap6/inetutils/inetutils.docfiles_list > chap6/inetutils/inetutils.programs_list > chap6/inetutils/inetutils.libraries_list > > Or some variation of this. This is the most robust approach I see. It has what > everyone needs, maybe not in the way they want it but in a way that's > perfectly usable. > > A book like this would make me much much happier. It's easy to maintain, and > practical. It's not very easy to read from an html browser, but maybe a > simple index.html page could be done to keep things browsable, and easy on > svn if a new package is added or if packages are moved around. > > The way I have been editing xml, with Vim, is extremely prone to errors. The > pages are not usable, easily, as scripts. And adding more stuff like file > lists will just make things worse. Xml is perfectly capable of handling all > of this, but it's overkill and I'm more happy as a system developer than a > book developer (I do not want to learn xml). > > I know a lot of people will not like a flip to plain text, and to be honest > that doesn't bother me one bit. If anyone has a suggestion that doesn't > involve me or other editors taking a six month course in web programing then > I would like to hear it. This sounds a lot like my installation script system I use for my own system. In it's current state it is probably not exactly what you need, but with enough hands it can be formed into exactly what you need. I generally try to keep my personal & separate works out of this list, but the bait you threw is just too tempting. (considering how much of a deviant I am in the linux world..) I have a working example of a complete build system based around pure & simple text, with '#' comments: http://kevux.org/files/tkis-0.4.6.tz2 http://kevux.org/files/tkis-0.4.6.tz2.md5 And the file-format/text-format specifications that it follows: http://kevux.org/fss It can be restructured pretty easily so that your particular design/structure can be used. > > This idea is harder on book readers and users, and easier on editors, which is > less efficient, but I think it's a fair compromise if extra hours are spent > on systems development. I see this as a fallacy because plain text can _very easily_ be converted immediately before being visible to the user, via some front-end. Take Windows for example, what a user see's rarely has anything to do with what is going on. Plain text can be converted to html on the fly into a webpage for them to easily read. In fact, the scripting system is run entirely off _very_ basic regular expression commands via grep & awk > > I want to thank Manuel very very much for converting the original plain text > book to xml/html, and for doing ongoing maintenance and changes, but I want > to go back like it was originally. This has been bugging me for a long time. > > I'm curious to hear opinions about this. My mind is open. > > robert If you have any more questions about my scripts, let me know. -- Kevin Day -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/hlfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
