Slightly OT: Debian Community Poll
in [ADA]
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From: Dmitry A. Kazakov on 15 Jun 2010 10:59 On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:56:51 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote: > Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote on comp.lang.ada: >>>> The things missing in the stable package of GtkSourceView are at least one >>>> year old. I am wondering why this key GTK package is so poorly packaged. >> >>> It is not a key GTK+ package (few other packages depend on it) and it >>> is not poorly packaged. >> >> If you build a GUI, an ability to render and edit texts is not always, but >> often, essential. Now I am not certain if other GTK parts are actual. There >> might be issues, e.g. older GTK versions had nasty problems with drop down >> windows. > > That is correct but most applications that need to display text use > widgets other than GtkSourceView, They might implement their own. I suppose that GPS does this. But it has very complex ones. For an average end user GtkSourceView is the best available solution in terms of functionality/implementation expenses. > like e.g. GtkTextView or simply > GtkLabel. GtkSourceView is, in fact, quite heavy and specialized. GtkSourceView is built on top of GtkTextView in order to replaces it. GtkTextView is barely usable as a text renderer/editor. As for being heavy-weight, this argument makes little sense because text buffer and text view load the whole file. So it is heavy from the start per design. GtkSourceView maybe worsen that (due to use of regex patterns), but who cares in these days and under UNIX!? >>> If you want recent packages, you should use testing (like I do) or unstable. >> >> I will. Even GNAT GPL has shorter cycles. There should be a reason... > > The reason for the 1-year release cycle of GNAT GPL is that it also > serves for the GNAT Academic Program, so its release cycle matches > that of university curricula, i.e. 1 year. I don't believe that is the reason. (Even if AdaCore would say so. (:-)) > The reason for the longer life cycle of Debian is to match the > expectations of conservative server administrators. They buy a new > server and install Debian N on it and do not want any changes in the > software except, reluctantly, for security bugs. 3 or 4 years later > they buy a new server, install Debian N+1 on it, migrate their data > and scrap the old server. That answers my question! Outdated packages is Debian policy. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de
From: Ludovic Brenta on 15 Jun 2010 11:30 Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> The reason for the longer life cycle of Debian is to match the >> expectations of conservative server administrators. They buy a new >> server and install Debian N on it and do not want any changes in the >> software except, reluctantly, for security bugs. 3 or 4 years later >> they buy a new server, install Debian N+1 on it, migrate their data >> and scrap the old server. > > That answers my question! Outdated packages is Debian policy. Not policy; just a consequence. Also, that depends on the definition of "outdated". To a conservative server administrator, a 3-year-old package can be perfectly up-to-date if it serves its purpose and has no security bug; this is their choice, not yours. Please do not impose your definition of "outdated" on everyone else and do not disparage the hard work that Debian Developers put in quality control. You, an Ada software engineer, should know better than "the latest is always the greatest". You deleted the other half of what I said, so I'll paste it here for reference: >> Since you are neither an academic nor a conservative server >> administrator, as an individual user administering only your own >> machine, you have no reason to lock yourself into a release cycle at >> all; you can upgrade as seldom or as often as you want to. As a >> developer of a future Debian package, you however must build on >> unstable; hence my suggestion to use whatever you want as a user and >> an unstable chroot for your Debian packaging. This second half was for you, Dmitry, and I am a bit sad that you chose to ignore it. Please re-read it aloud, slowly. -- Ludovic Brenta.
From: Dmitry A. Kazakov on 15 Jun 2010 12:44 On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:30:59 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote: > Please do not impose > your definition of "outdated" on everyone else and do not disparage > the hard work that Debian Developers put in quality control. Outdated = not current, obsolete. > You, an > Ada software engineer, should know better than "the latest is always > the greatest". True, but it is up to the authors, in this case of GtkSourceView, to decide what is "greatest" and what is stable. >>> Since you are neither an academic nor a conservative server >>> administrator, as an individual user administering only your own >>> machine, you have no reason to lock yourself into a release cycle at >>> all; you can upgrade as seldom or as often as you want to. As a >>> developer of a future Debian package, you however must build on >>> unstable; hence my suggestion to use whatever you want as a user and >>> an unstable chroot for your Debian packaging. > > This second half was for you, Dmitry, and I am a bit sad that you > chose to ignore it. Please re-read it aloud, slowly. I cut it, because there was no need to comment it. It would be off-topic to dispute over conservatism, why Ada users are more conservative than server administrators, who are the target customers of Linux distributions. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de
From: Stephen Leake on 16 Jun 2010 02:13 "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> writes: > On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:30:59 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote: > >> Please do not impose >> your definition of "outdated" on everyone else and do not disparage >> the hard work that Debian Developers put in quality control. > > Outdated = not current, obsolete. "not current" is _not_ the same as "obsolete"! "not current" means "there is a later version" "obsolete" means "there is absolutely no reason to use this package". If the FTP package in Debian Lenny allows you to transfer files between machines, it is not "obsolete". The fact that the FTP package in Debian Squeeze has a couple more minor features does not change that fact. -- -- Stephe
From: Dmitry A. Kazakov on 16 Jun 2010 03:36
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:13:11 -0400, Stephen Leake wrote: > "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox(a)dmitry-kazakov.de> writes: > >> On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:30:59 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> >>> Please do not impose >>> your definition of "outdated" on everyone else and do not disparage >>> the hard work that Debian Developers put in quality control. >> >> Outdated = not current, obsolete. > > "not current" is _not_ the same as "obsolete"! > > "not current" means "there is a later version" Yes. Outdated may mean either. (Comma in dictionary definitions means "or") > "obsolete" means "there is absolutely no reason to use this package". No. Obsolete is not current, not belonging to the present time, out of use, out of date, unfashionable. That does not automatically imply anything about whether you should or not use it. E.g. I must use the obsolete GNAT under Linux, because there is no newer one. > If the FTP package in Debian Lenny allows you to transfer files between > machines, it is not "obsolete". The fact that the FTP package in Debian > Squeeze has a couple more minor features does not change that fact. Ada 83 is obsolete Ada 95 is not current (:-)) -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de |