Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

[Lee D. Rothstein]

Marc Weber wrote:

 > I've read the "how to contribute a new package" on the faq and
 > started writing the cygport file.
 > It was easy.
 >
 > The distfiles which I've created this way can be found on
 > http://mawercer.de/dist
 >
 > Which is the recommended way of testing them?
 > tar xfj -C / nix*.tar.bz2 ?
 >
 > Sincerly
 > Marc Weber

I am totally unqualified to answer your questions. However, I did
look at elements of your package components because I am curious
about being a Cygwin developer/maintainer, and I have been
struggling for some time to figure out how to improved Cygwin/GNU
documentation/help.

With that fan-less-fare (;-)), I make the following observations:

 * The hint file is not complete and appears to be some kind of
   gag?
  
 * It would be quite helpful, if there was a "NIX Intro" 'man' page
   that gave the function of the package that I could only find
   described in the Cygport file. This page would also point out
   the components of the package much the same way that 'man perl'
   does, but on the relatively smaller scale of 'nix'.
  
 * It would also be helpful, if the '.TH' description for each
   man page was more functionally descriptive.
  
 * I believe this description is what goes into the 'whatis'
   database that is used by both 'whatis' and 'apropos', and
   that, in particular, is what makes the two above points
   important, IMHO. (It is this oversight which annoys me about
   the NetPBM package, for example.)
  
 * I believe that such changes would make your package more
   accessible, and therefore more popular, but, as I've already
   said, I'm unqualified to judge.

Having made all the criticisms, I must say that I was overjoyed
to see the extent of the 'man' pages.

(My personal belief is that 'info' causes cancer in chickens, and
no reason to involve these sacrificial birds in the GNUish
documentation wars. ;-) )

Were you intending your package manager to be used for
maintaining parallel Cygwin 1.5/1.7 configurations?



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Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

[Marc Weber]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 11:27:45AM -0400, Lee D. Rothstein wrote:
>  look at elements of your package components because I am curious
>  about being a Cygwin developer/maintainer, and I have been
>  struggling for some time to figure out how to improved Cygwin/GNU
>  documentation/help.
Interesting .. I've always found the information I was needing
(sometimes asking in chatrooms :)

>  With that fan-less-fare (;-)), I make the following observations:
> 
>  * The hint file is not complete and appears to be some kind of
>    gag?
Can you recommend me one which you find "complete" ?
I had a quick glance at some packages eg
ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/cygwin/release/cron/setup.hint
and they don't seem to contain much more information.
Can you point me to a "complete" one?

>   * It would be quite helpful, if there was a "NIX Intro" 'man' page
>    that gave the function of the package that I could only find
>    described in the Cygport file. 


 "(package manager allowing) multiple versions of a package to be installed side-by-side,
ensures that dependency specifications are complete, supports atomic
upgrades and rollbacks .."
Does it sound more descriptive after adding those words within () ?


>     page would also point out
>    the components of the package much the same way that 'man perl'
>    does, but on the relatively smaller scale of 'nix'.
Are you missing a small doc containing:
        nix
        ----------------
        <short description, eg first paragraph from http://nixos.org/about.html>


        list of binaries:
                nix-env : manages your local installation environments
                nix-collect-garbage : removes all files from store no longer referenced
                                 by any registered installation
                nix-build: tool to build derivations
                nix-instantiate: ...

>   * It would also be helpful, if the '.TH' description for each
>    man page was more functionally descriptive.
eg the vim.1.gz man file contains:
        .TH VIM 1 "2006 Apr 11"
        .SH NAME
        vim \- Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
Both apropos and whatis shows the line after .SH NAME here.
This it's fine in my opinion.

>   * I believe that such changes would make your package more
>    accessible, and therefore more popular, but, as I've already
>    said, I'm unqualified to judge.
Mmh :) The poeple installing this package will know why they install
it.. at least at the moment I think.

>  (My personal belief is that 'info' causes cancer in chickens, and
>  no reason to involve these sacrificial birds in the GNUish
>  documentation wars. ;-) )
I enjoy info bash much more than man bash..
and i prefer info screen over man screen

>  Were you intending your package manager to be used for
>  maintaining parallel Cygwin 1.5/1.7 configurations?
I'd like to introduce you to my intensions:
I'm using cygwin (scp/ ssh) because I already know how to use them and
it just works. I've used sshd and The X server to connect to colinux
instance some time ago. I don't know much more about cygwin yet.
I'm using nix because it's a perfect tool to manage packages in a pure
way. The difference to debian is in sentence: Everyone can assemble
his/her own environment using the same sytem running different versions
of applications and using different libraries. The sytem can't break
because you can always rollback. (that's about nix and nixos).
There are some other features as well (binary diff distributions etc).
Those are the reasons why I'm using nix(os) as main operating system.
I've spend quite some time to add about 80 haskell packges to this
distribution system. Now I'd like to build and install them easily on
windows as well. Because nix is developped on linux cygwin is the
perfect base to make it run.
I'm not sure what you mean by maintaining a parallel Cygwin 1.5/1.7
configurations .. But nix itself could be used to build an alternative
to cygwin. I don't have the time to do this within the near future
(would be cool to have..)

The documentation doesn't build yet on windows. It can be found online
at nixos.org anyway. Do you think adding a link to nixos.org is enough
to enable people beeing interested finding the docs they are looking
for?

Anyway: Thank your for taking the time and giving me some feedback.

Marc Weber

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Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

[Lee D. Rothstein]

Marc Weber wrote:
>>
>>  * The hint file is not complete and appears to be some kind of
>>    gag?
> Can you recommend me one which you find "complete" ?
> I had a quick glance at some packages eg
> ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/cygwin/release/cron/setup.hint
> and they don't seem to contain much more information.
> Can you point me to a "complete" one?
Ahem. Must be some kind of language problem?

Is this a gag or an oversight?:

setup.hint:
------------
category: Games Text
          ^^^^^^^^^^             
requires: libncurses6 cygwin
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
sdesc:    "A whackamole simulation in ASCII art"
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ldesc: "allows multiple versions of a package to be installed side-by-side,
ensures that dependency specifications are complete, supports atomic 
upgrades
and rollbacks .."
category: System Devel
# Let's see wether it works this way first..
#requires: cygwin patch gcc-g++ bash make autoconf libtool curl


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Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

[Lee D. Rothstein]

 >>   * It would be quite helpful, if there was a "NIX Intro" 'man' page
 >>    that gave the function of the package that I could only find
 >>    described in the Cygport file.
 >
 >
 >  "(package manager allowing) multiple versions of a package to
 > be installed side-by-side,
 > ensures that dependency specifications are complete, supports atomic
 > upgrades and rollbacks .."
 > Does it sound more descriptive after adding those words within () ?

Is it a run-time environment package manager? As opposed to a
source code package manager? Shouldn't that be pointed out? Or,
don't I understand the terminology?


 >>     page would also point out
 >>    the components of the package much the same way that 'man perl'
 >>    does, but on the relatively smaller scale of 'nix'.

 > Are you missing a small doc containing:
 >         nix
 >         ----------------
 >         <short description, eg first paragraph from 
http://nixos.org/about.html>

Was this a man page? Or, what? Name of the file?

If I'm missing it, it must be missing from your .tar.gz?

Web page references are very nice, but largely inacessible from
'man' 'apropos'. Also note that while 'info' has an "apropos"
option it doesn't focus on the function of the command or library
the way that man's does.

('info's apropos is more akin to 'man -k'.)

 >
 >
 >         list of binaries:
 >                 nix-env : manages your local installation environments
 >                 nix-collect-garbage : removes all files from store no 
longer referenced
 >                                  by any registered installation
 >                 nix-build: tool to build derivations
 >                 nix-instantiate: ...
 >
 >>   * It would also be helpful, if the '.TH' description for each
 >>    man page was more functionally descriptive.

Clearly, I referenced the wrong nroff/troff/groff macro. It should
have been ".SH" as you suggested.

 > eg the vim.1.gz man file contains:
 >         .TH VIM 1 "2006 Apr 11"
 >         .SH NAME
 >         vim \- Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
 > Both apropos and whatis shows the line after .SH NAME here.
 > This it's fine in my opinion.

Vim's line is fine, IMHO. Your lines, however, are not, because
they are all self-referential to Nix, rather than Nix' function.
If you add the nix.1 man page, then the problem is solved,
Because if you find that with 'apropos package', then that page
will get you to the other stuff.

 >>   * I believe that such changes would make your package more
 >>    accessible, and therefore more popular, but, as I've already
 >>    said, I'm unqualified to judge.

 > Mmh :) The poeple installing this package will know why they install
 > it.. at least at the moment I think.

If you don't already live in New England, you might want to
consider moving there. That's pretty much their atitude about
street and road signs. Having grown up in a city laid out in a
perfect Cartesianal grid, I find it off-putting.

But remember, these are the same folks that "ceded" the IT
industry to Silicon Valley. ;-)

 > I enjoy info bash much more than man bash..
 > and i prefer info screen over man screen

If you provide info pages with man pages, I think that's fine,
but I think the motives for 'info' have been more than satisfied
by hypertext; but, the man pages still form, IMHO, a mimimum
documentation set for knowlegable GNU users who are looking for
something and experimenting.

 >>  Were you intending your package manager to be used for
 >>  maintaining parallel Cygwin 1.5/1.7 configurations?

 > I'd like to introduce you to my intensions:
...

Might it work for the Cywin 1.5/1.7 configs?

 > The documentation doesn't build yet on windows. It can be found online
 > at nixos.org anyway. Do you think adding a link to nixos.org is enough
 > to enable people beeing interested finding the docs they are looking
 > for?

That's a good idea, IMHO; put it in the body of the nix.1 man
page in the way that I suggest above, that you will soon write,
once you see the *one true path*, i.e. /usr/share/man! ;-)


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Re: I'd like to add and mantain a new pacakge: nix

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 11:27:45AM -0400, Lee D. Rothstein wrote:
> Marc Weber wrote:
>>I've read the "how to contribute a new package" on the faq and started
>>writing the cygport file.  It was easy.
>>
>>The distfiles which I've created this way can be found on
>>http://mawercer.de/dist
>>
>>Which is the recommended way of testing them?  tar xfj -C /
>>nix*.tar.bz2 ?
>>
>>Sincerly Marc Weber
>
>I am totally unqualified to answer your questions.

Why is this redirected to the cygwin mailing list?  This kind of thing
is handled in the cygwin-apps list.

("I'm not subscribed to cygwin-apps" is not a reason to redirect
discussion here)

cgf

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