Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:59 AM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Eray Aslan wrote: On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0500, Dale wrote: +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. I would say working as intended. If you do not know what a package does, chances are you don't need to enable it. And if you do want to tinker, USE flags gives you enough of a hint to start googling. Having said that, we should at least have gramatically correct English in descriptions. One might also lean towards more verbosity in end-user oriented packages (versus server/backend/toolchain packages). In any case, 10-15 words should be more than enough to explain what a USE flag does. As was posted by another person, google usually points right back to the Gentoo docs which does not help. For me, most of the time, the descriptions don't help a bit, not even to tinker. So, given that, maybe working as intended but still not very helpful. Having USE foo to say it enables foo does not help much if you don't know what foo is. There are a lot of them that says that and it really goes without saying that it does that. If you enable a USE flag, of course it enables the flag. Question is, what the heck is the flag? What does it do? Maybe we need a USE flag for smoke. See if someone tinkers with it and blows up their rig. lol In all seriousness, this has been discussed before and it doesn't get any better. I'm not sure how to fix it either. The space for the description is limited. Read the ebuild? Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Excerpts from Alec Warner's message of Thu Mar 31 08:23:45 +0200 2011: On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:59 AM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Eray Aslan wrote: In all seriousness, this has been discussed before and it doesn't get any better. I'm not sure how to fix it either. The space for the description is limited. What is the limit? Anyway we can change it, cannot we? And you can always write shortly something better than “Enable support for foo”. On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:59 AM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Read the ebuild? Read-the-ebuild? And maybe unpack the archive, check configure's help, read the README, INSTALL and so, and analyze source code to eventually find out what the flag does? This that what user is supposed to do for every package? -- Amadeusz Żołnowski PGP key fpr: C700 CEDE 0C18 212E 49DA 4653 F013 4531 E1DB FAB5 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: Excerpts from Alec Warner's message of Thu Mar 31 08:23:45 +0200 2011: On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:59 AM, Dalerdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Eray Aslan wrote: In all seriousness, this has been discussed before and it doesn't get any better. I'm not sure how to fix it either. The space for the description is limited. What is the limit? Anyway we can change it, cannot we? And you can always write shortly something better than “Enable support for foo”. I don't recall the exact amount but it is sort of small. After all, if there was no limit, some would write a book about the flag. ;-) On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:59 AM, Dalerdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Read the ebuild? Read-the-ebuild? And maybe unpack the archive, check configure's help, read the README, INSTALL and so, and analyze source code to eventually find out what the flag does? This that what user is supposed to do for every package? If I am expected to read every single thing installed on here, I would never get to use the puter for anything else. I have almost 1,000 packages on here. Most of which I really don't need to know the inner working of as a user. USE flags could come in handy tho. I always check them before a upgrade/install. I was just reading through the USE file, it is a lot better than it used to be. Someone has been doing some work in there. There are still some that I am clueless about but a lot of them are better. I like these: directfb - Adds support for DirectFB layer (library for FB devices) latex - Adds support for LaTeX (typesetting package) Those two are pretty good to be so short. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
2011/3/31 Eray Aslan e...@gentoo.org: On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0500, Dale wrote: +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. I would say working as intended. If you do not know what a package does, chances are you don't need to enable it. And if you do want to tinker, USE flags gives you enough of a hint to start googling. This has nothing to do with what you want to imply here. It's not about the tech skill of the user reading the definition. It's about the definitions being generic and vague enough so they can fit eight thousand packages that doesn't relate in any way, right? To say that the kde use flag gives support for kde says next to nothing to me on some packages. When I look into the ebuild and/or into the sources I can see all it does is to copy a .desktop file somewhere, or to enable the kde file dialog, or to create a window deco or a plasma snippet, or a phonon backend, or a color scheme. That's what I wanted to know and there's no way I can know it by looking at the USE description. Having said that, we should at least have gramatically correct English in descriptions. One might also lean towards more verbosity in end-user oriented packages (versus server/backend/toolchain packages). In any case, 10-15 words should be more than enough to explain what a USE flag does. Mostly. But try cleaning the ffmpeg/libav-mplayer mess to decide which codec to use and you will find that a clear explanation (so you can decide) can't fit into that space. I don't have a problem reading ebuilds, though having to dive into the sources of a big package is another story, but I can understand users that find this an unpractical solution. After all, if the USE descriptions doesn't tell a thing we should just remove them because they are taking space in our portage tree to provide zero info. So, kde flag purpose is to enable support for KDE, oh, really?[/sarcasm] -- Jesús Guerrero Botella
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
This is what I mean by good description + flag name=mp3Enable support for mp3 decoding over pkgmedia-sound/mpg123/pkg instead of relying on ffmpeg support./flag instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files Everybody understands what mp3 means, but we truely need something else here. justin signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 31-03-2011 09:23:16 +0200, justin wrote: This is what I mean by good description + flag name=mp3Enable support for mp3 decoding over pkgmedia-sound/mpg123/pkg instead of relying on ffmpeg support./flag instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files Everybody understands what mp3 means, but we truely need something else here. Are these two descriptions for the same package? Both messages say something different to me. This is not an improvement perse, but just a correction, because one of the two is (or both are) clearly wrong. I find the default clear enough. It seems the mp3 USE-flag is overloaded with multiple functions, this is likely the cause of the problem here. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dne 31.3.2011 09:33, Fabian Groffen napsal(a): On 31-03-2011 09:23:16 +0200, justin wrote: This is what I mean by good description +flag name=mp3Enable support for mp3 decoding over pkgmedia-sound/mpg123/pkg instead of relying on ffmpeg support./flag instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files Everybody understands what mp3 means, but we truely need something else here. Are these two descriptions for the same package? Both messages say something different to me. This is not an improvement perse, but just a correction, because one of the two is (or both are) clearly wrong. I find the default clear enough. It seems the mp3 USE-flag is overloaded with multiple functions, this is likely the cause of the problem here. The mp3 useflag is correct. It just can use mpg123 which is actualy better implementation and if you compile mplayer with -mp3 then it looks to libavcodec for the mp3 support (which is supposed to be worse than the mpg123). -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk2UMBYACgkQHB6c3gNBRYfsPwCgqAfhVNNfGyvwOfDh1MNqc67Q TLgAn3xvG3Zi/PbZZRLy/WVpuDZTs+uD =OeN9 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 31/03/11 09:33, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 31-03-2011 09:23:16 +0200, justin wrote: This is what I mean by good description +flag name=mp3Enable support for mp3 decoding over pkgmedia-sound/mpg123/pkg instead of relying on ffmpeg support./flag instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files Everybody understands what mp3 means, but we truely need something else here. Are these two descriptions for the same package? Both messages say something different to me. This is not an improvement perse, but just a correction, because one of the two is (or both are) clearly wrong. I find the default clear enough. It seems the mp3 USE-flag is overloaded with multiple functions, this is likely the cause of the problem here. First is a package specific, second is the default. And no, asuming the USE is introduced correctly here, it makes a difference, whether we take the global meaning - reading mp3 files at all; or changing the way it is done for this package. Because here it means, you could not disable mp3 support, but rather choose on which way it should happen. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 31-03-2011 09:41:10 +0200, Tomáš Chvátal wrote: Dne 31.3.2011 09:33, Fabian Groffen napsal(a): On 31-03-2011 09:23:16 +0200, justin wrote: instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files I find the default clear enough. It seems the mp3 USE-flag is overloaded with multiple functions, this is likely the cause of the problem here. The mp3 useflag is correct. It just can use mpg123 which is actualy better implementation and if you compile mplayer with -mp3 then it looks to libavcodec for the mp3 support (which is supposed to be worse than the mpg123). use.desc gives the default USE-description, which says it enables support for reading mp3 files. Hence, (based on what you say) the useflag is incorrect for mplayer, because it can *always* read mp3-files. mplayer should not use mp3 USE-flag, because -mp3 to still have a mp3-reading capable player feels quite counter-intuitive. It happens to be that mp3 USE-flag is hooked up to the encode USE-flag -- this is where it no longer has anything to do with the description from use.desc. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 31-03-2011 09:44:37 +0200, justin wrote: First is a package specific, second is the default. And no, asuming the USE is introduced correctly here, it makes a difference, whether we take the global meaning - reading mp3 files at all; or changing the way it is done for this package. Because here it means, you could not disable mp3 support, but rather choose on which way it should happen. If a flag is in use.desc (global), then I should be able to put it in my USE= in my /etc/make.conf. That also means that the flag should only be used to do exactly as it says in use.desc, and nothing else. The package in question here should really use a different USE-flag, because it is overloading the original (intended?) meaning of the mp3 USE-flag, leading to possibly unexpected results for the end-user. There is nothing unclear on the descriptions here, the same flag is just used for two different things, which is wrong if the flag is global. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 31/03/11 09:57, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 31-03-2011 09:44:37 +0200, justin wrote: First is a package specific, second is the default. And no, asuming the USE is introduced correctly here, it makes a difference, whether we take the global meaning - reading mp3 files at all; or changing the way it is done for this package. Because here it means, you could not disable mp3 support, but rather choose on which way it should happen. If a flag is in use.desc (global), then I should be able to put it in my USE= in my /etc/make.conf. That also means that the flag should only be used to do exactly as it says in use.desc, and nothing else. The package in question here should really use a different USE-flag, because it is overloading the original (intended?) meaning of the mp3 USE-flag, leading to possibly unexpected results for the end-user. There is nothing unclear on the descriptions here, the same flag is just used for two different things, which is wrong if the flag is global. Lets stop this discussion, because this doesn't has to do with the topic. All I wanted to do, is illustrating the difference between a missleading or not understandable USE description, to something, where I directly get a clue, what happens if I set it. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dne 31.3.2011 09:51, Fabian Groffen napsal(a): On 31-03-2011 09:41:10 +0200, Tomáš Chvátal wrote: Dne 31.3.2011 09:33, Fabian Groffen napsal(a): On 31-03-2011 09:23:16 +0200, justin wrote: instead of the default mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files I find the default clear enough. It seems the mp3 USE-flag is overloaded with multiple functions, this is likely the cause of the problem here. The mp3 useflag is correct. It just can use mpg123 which is actualy better implementation and if you compile mplayer with -mp3 then it looks to libavcodec for the mp3 support (which is supposed to be worse than the mpg123). use.desc gives the default USE-description, which says it enables support for reading mp3 files. Hence, (based on what you say) the useflag is incorrect for mplayer, because it can *always* read mp3-files. mplayer should not use mp3 USE-flag, because -mp3 to still have a mp3-reading capable player feels quite counter-intuitive. It happens to be that mp3 USE-flag is hooked up to the encode USE-flag -- this is where it no longer has anything to do with the description from use.desc. Well technically yep, but for lets say the ffmpeg the mp3 useflag means Enable mp3 encoding support. :) If user sets -mp3 it still can play mp3 tracks but in really worse quality so it is just nice convinience that ffmpeg always allows playing those files. Since i was that kind and disabled internal libmp3 that was first in order of what would be used simply with -mp3 you will get mplayer playing mp3 tracks but it is not desirable for you to do so. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk2UNx0ACgkQHB6c3gNBRYeKiQCgyoeAnZiTpvOz5cCuSQ32jU/W Cf0AoJdnIgdu9c/99Qy1i3gLkDIv77cB =99Me -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
2011/3/31 Tomáš Chvátal scarab...@gentoo.org: Well technically yep, but for lets say the ffmpeg the mp3 useflag means Enable mp3 encoding support. :) If user sets -mp3 it still can play mp3 tracks but in really worse quality so it is just nice convinience that ffmpeg always allows playing those files. Since i was that kind and disabled internal libmp3 that was first in order of what would be used simply with -mp3 you will get mplayer playing mp3 tracks but it is not desirable for you to do so. However, if I wanted someone else deciding what's desirable for me I wouldn't be using Gentoo, and I wouldn't care about USE flags at all. The only important thing here is that the label on top of the big red button doesn't match the purpose of the big red button. The final user doesn't really care if the USE is global or not, and s/he certainly doesn't care as much about the USE flag name as s/he can care about the USE flag purpose. On the other side, I remind everyone that there's bugs.gentoo.org which is where everyone should be reporting USE flag bugs instead of wasting the time here. Just like I do when I feel something is not right. Things usually get fixed.The last one that got my attention was the symlink flag for mplayer2, I reported it yesterday, now the fix is in the tree. -- Jesús Guerrero Botella
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 29/03/11 18:02, Andy Spencer wrote: On 2011-03-29 17:10, Jeroen Roovers wrote: You could start by pointing out some good examples of bad descriptions. A few regular expressions might help with that: /:(\w+) - (Enable|Add) support for \1$/ /:(\w+) - (Enable|Add) \1( support)?$/ For example: app-admin/puppet:shadow - Enable shadow support app-editors/tea:hacking - Enable hacking support app-emulation/q4wine:icoutils - Enable icoutils support app-misc/roadnav:openstreetmap - Enable openstreetmap support app-misc/roadnav:scripting - Enable scripting support app-office/abiword-plugins:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support app-office/abiword:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support app-pda/barry:boost - Enable boost support These are really not the examples I meant, but I will post some as soon I stumble on another one. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
j == justin j...@gentoo.org writes: j In my opinion some thing like j Enables foo intergration j or j Enables support for foo j if it isn't totally clear what foo is Even preferring $C/$PN where $PN is currently used would help, since it makes it clear that the foo is a package. -JimC -- James Cloos cl...@jhcloos.com OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Excerpts from James Cloos's message of Wed Mar 30 18:13:21 +0200 2011: j Enables foo intergration j or j Enables support for foo j if it isn't totally clear what foo is Even preferring $C/$PN where $PN is currently used would help, since it makes it clear that the foo is a package. The main problem is that user might not know what kind of “foo” support it is. For example I have “pango” USE flag in sys-boot/plymouth. What would explain to you something like: “Enables support for x11-libs/pango”? And how you would compare it with “Adds support for printing text on splash screen and text prompts, e.g. for password”? -- Amadeusz Żołnowski PGP key fpr: C700 CEDE 0C18 212E 49DA 4653 F013 4531 E1DB FAB5 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 21:56 +0200, Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: The main problem is that user might not know what kind of “foo” support it is. For example I have “pango” USE flag in sys-boot/plymouth. What would explain to you something like: “Enables support for x11-libs/pango”? And how you would compare it with “Adds support for printing text on splash screen and text prompts, e.g. for password”? I'm sorry, but that's a terrible example.. In this case, it shouldn't be a use flag at all. We shoudl avoid having use flag where the description is Adds support for not being completely broken -- Olivier Crête tes...@gentoo.org Gentoo Developer signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Excerpts from Olivier Crête's message of Wed Mar 30 22:14:30 +0200 2011: On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 21:56 +0200, Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: The main problem is that user might not know what kind of “foo” support it is. For example I have “pango” USE flag in sys-boot/plymouth. What would explain to you something like: “Enables support for x11-libs/pango”? And how you would compare it with “Adds support for printing text on splash screen and text prompts, e.g. for password”? I'm sorry, but that's a terrible example.. In this case, it shouldn't be a use flag at all. We shoudl avoid having use flag where the description is Adds support for not being completely broken Please… We're not actually discussing about what should be flagged or not, but about descriptions, where I think I have made the point more or less. Justin has pointed problem which is worth our attention. It is not just me being pissed off when reading „Enable support for foo”, there are many users complaining about that. -- Amadeusz Żołnowski PGP key fpr: C700 CEDE 0C18 212E 49DA 4653 F013 4531 E1DB FAB5 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: Justin has pointed problem which is worth our attention. It is not just me being pissed off when reading „Enable support for foo”, there are many users complaining about that. +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 03/30/2011 05:41 PM, Dale wrote: Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: Justin has pointed problem which is worth our attention. It is not just me being pissed off when reading „Enable support for foo”, there are many users complaining about that. +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. Dale :-) :-) More often than not it just returns the Gentoo USE flag description. Either from g.o itself, or g-p.com which duplicates the same description. Every now and then you get real lucky and there's a post on f.g.o that comes close to telling you what it does. - - Aaron -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREIAAYFAk2Tse8ACgkQCOhwUhu5AEmxiwD/YVcKJYI82bdlnqcfdlQ5YeJF G2536ZJ/d5sdkPUTUHMA/RPQpNXpP4NZxuBJL0wU3rlpot7YGRoT6jD7hVAOAgL0 =mk5z -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Aaron W. Swenson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 03/30/2011 05:41 PM, Dale wrote: Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: Justin has pointed problem which is worth our attention. It is not just me being pissed off when reading „Enable support for foo”, there are many users complaining about that. +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. Dale :-) :-) More often than not it just returns the Gentoo USE flag description. Either from g.o itself, or g-p.com which duplicates the same description. Every now and then you get real lucky and there's a post on f.g.o that comes close to telling you what it does. - - Aaron That was why I said if anything. Usually, I get just what you are describing which gives about zero help. That said, with the limits the description has, I'm not sure how to improve it. It doesn't have much room to expand. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0500, Dale wrote: +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. I would say working as intended. If you do not know what a package does, chances are you don't need to enable it. And if you do want to tinker, USE flags gives you enough of a hint to start googling. Having said that, we should at least have gramatically correct English in descriptions. One might also lean towards more verbosity in end-user oriented packages (versus server/backend/toolchain packages). In any case, 10-15 words should be more than enough to explain what a USE flag does. -- Eray Aslan Developer, Gentoo Linux eras at gentoo.org
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Eray Aslan wrote: On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0500, Dale wrote: +1 Some descriptions may as well not have one at all. May as well Google the flag and the package and see what, if anything, it returns. I would say working as intended. If you do not know what a package does, chances are you don't need to enable it. And if you do want to tinker, USE flags gives you enough of a hint to start googling. Having said that, we should at least have gramatically correct English in descriptions. One might also lean towards more verbosity in end-user oriented packages (versus server/backend/toolchain packages). In any case, 10-15 words should be more than enough to explain what a USE flag does. As was posted by another person, google usually points right back to the Gentoo docs which does not help. For me, most of the time, the descriptions don't help a bit, not even to tinker. So, given that, maybe working as intended but still not very helpful. Having USE foo to say it enables foo does not help much if you don't know what foo is. There are a lot of them that says that and it really goes without saying that it does that. If you enable a USE flag, of course it enables the flag. Question is, what the heck is the flag? What does it do? Maybe we need a USE flag for smoke. See if someone tinkers with it and blows up their rig. lol In all seriousness, this has been discussed before and it doesn't get any better. I'm not sure how to fix it either. The space for the description is limited. Dale :-) :-)
[gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Hi, the descriptions of USE flags should explain what the USE is good for. In my opinion some thing like Enables foo intergration or Enables support for foo if it isn't totally clear what foo is, sucks!! There are many, many description which do not tell me as a user without googling what I could enable or not. That doesn't make gentoo very user friendly! So please enhance you descriptions!! Thanks justin signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Excerpts from justin's message of Tue Mar 29 16:24:57 +0200 2011: the descriptions of USE flags should explain what the USE is good for. In my opinion some thing like Enables foo intergration or Enables support for foo if it isn't totally clear what foo is, sucks!! There are many, many description which do not tell me as a user without googling what I could enable or not. That doesn't make gentoo very user friendly! So please enhance you descriptions!! I 100% agree with you! This is something what is always pissing me off when reading equery uses foo to find out how to set flags. I'm actually describing even global USE flags in my package's metadata.xml if their purpose might not be clear and I'd like to expect that from others. It is not a problem to write one sentence for each flag while you already know what flag does. Maybe it should even become our policy and not just recommendation? -- Amadeusz Żołnowski PGP key fpr: C700 CEDE 0C18 212E 49DA 4653 F013 4531 E1DB FAB5 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:24:57 +0200 justin j...@gentoo.org wrote: if it isn't totally clear what foo is, sucks!! You could start by pointing out some good examples of bad descriptions. So please enhance you descriptions!! And when you do, also remove all exclamation marks. Not all Gentoo users are used to reading German. ;-) jer
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Ter, 2011-03-29 at 17:08 +0200, Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: Excerpts from justin's message of Tue Mar 29 16:24:57 +0200 2011: the descriptions of USE flags should explain what the USE is good for. In my opinion some thing like Enables foo intergration or Enables support for foo if it isn't totally clear what foo is, sucks!! There are many, many description which do not tell me as a user without googling what I could enable or not. That doesn't make gentoo very user friendly! So please enhance you descriptions!! I 100% agree with you! This is something what is always pissing me off when reading equery uses foo to find out how to set flags. I'm actually describing even global USE flags in my package's metadata.xml if their purpose might not be clear and I'd like to expect that from others. It is not a problem to write one sentence for each flag while you already know what flag does. Maybe it should even become our policy and not just recommendation? Why do we have to turn everything into policies? This case would be easily solved by making a list of use flags that we find poorly described, then improving the description of each. - Angelo
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Excerpts from Angelo Arrifano's message of Tue Mar 29 17:14:48 +0200 2011: On Ter, 2011-03-29 at 17:08 +0200, Amadeusz Żołnowski wrote: I'm actually describing even global USE flags in my package's metadata.xml if their purpose might not be clear and I'd like to expect that from others. It is not a problem to write one sentence for each flag while you already know what flag does. Maybe it should even become our policy and not just recommendation? Why do we have to turn everything into policies? This case would be easily solved by making a list of use flags that we find poorly described, then improving the description of each. It would be hard to find good descriptions. The problem is that even if flag has similar meaning in few packages, it usually adds a bit different functionality and that difference matters. User would like to know what he/she benefits or looses with enabling/disabling the flag. It's not just a matter of one click, it at least minutes of compilation. I think it's a task to package maintainers to review if current descriptions explain what flags in their packages bring to user. -- Amadeusz Żołnowski PGP key fpr: C700 CEDE 0C18 212E 49DA 4653 F013 4531 E1DB FAB5 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On 2011-03-29 17:10, Jeroen Roovers wrote: You could start by pointing out some good examples of bad descriptions. A few regular expressions might help with that: /:(\w+) - (Enable|Add) support for \1$/ /:(\w+) - (Enable|Add) \1( support)?$/ For example: app-admin/puppet:shadow - Enable shadow support app-editors/tea:hacking - Enable hacking support app-emulation/q4wine:icoutils - Enable icoutils support app-misc/roadnav:openstreetmap - Enable openstreetmap support app-misc/roadnav:scripting - Enable scripting support app-office/abiword-plugins:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support app-office/abiword:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support app-pda/barry:boost - Enable boost support pgpz4DicObooB.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
Le mardi 29 mars 2011 à 16:02 +, Andy Spencer a écrit : app-office/abiword-plugins:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support app-office/abiword:thesaurus - Enable thesaurus support can't help you if you don't know what a thesaurus is, really :( -- Gilles Dartiguelongue e...@gentoo.org Gentoo
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 2:24 PM, justin j...@gentoo.org wrote: Hi, the descriptions of USE flags should explain what the USE is good for. In my opinion some thing like Enables foo intergration or Enables support for foo if it isn't totally clear what foo is, sucks!! There are many, many description which do not tell me as a user without googling what I could enable or not. That doesn't make gentoo very user friendly! So please enhance you descriptions!! Thanks justin One USE flag I remember in particular bothering me was gnome-extra/gnome-games' guile USE flag. The global description says guile - Adds support for the guile Scheme interpreter but this flag is actually determines whether a number of games are installed by this package. There are lots of cases like this that need a local use flag that says what each flag actually does for the package. Matt
Re: [gentoo-dev] Please enhance your USE descriptions!
On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Matt Turner matts...@gentoo.org wrote: One USE flag I remember in particular bothering me was gnome-extra/gnome-games' guile USE flag. The global description says guile - Adds support for the guile Scheme interpreter but this flag is actually determines whether a number of games are installed by this package. Actually, it only controls the installation of aisleriot (solitaire, freecell, etc). The USE-flag was changed from guile to aisleriot a while back, but the changes haven't made it to the tree yet because newer gnome-games are quite unusable. 2.28 (the current stable) is almost two years old. -- ~Nirbheek Chauhan Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team
