On 09/08/2024 8:43 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
On 07/08/24 at 19:05 +0200, Nicolas Peugnet wrote:
[...]
I sent the following email in reply to Bug#1042428 but I didn't see it was
archived, so I repost it here:
As I just recently started making Debian packages, I clicked multiple times on links
to <https://lintian.debian.org> that led me to a dead end, for instance from
mentors.debian.org, or on the hyperlinks that lintian itself produce in the terminal
output. It was not a very pleasant experience, especially for a newbie.
In my opinion, redirecting lintian.debian.org to the UDD links posted above is
not a good option, because as I understand it, they only were intended to show
the extended explanation for each tag. Having the list of all the affected
packages in this page it not helpful, and it makes the pages very slow to load
(and to produce).
So instead I thought that it would be quite easy to generate a static website
that would be very fast to generate once, and then to serve and load. So I made
my own implementation that generates a website that could be directly uploaded
to lintian.debian.org, as it follows strictly the previous URL structure (I
also added the manual of lintian as I also stumbled on links to it).
For now I hosted it on my server so you can see the result there:
<https://static.club1.fr/nicolas/lintian/>
For instance the link above translates to:
<https://static.club1.fr/nicolas/lintian/tags/superfluous-file-pattern.html>
And here are the sources:
<https://github.com/n-peugnet/lintian-ssg>
It is not meant to replace the corresponding UDD link, in fact I added a link
to it in the page of each tag, to see all the affected packages. But I think it
is better to first arrive on a very fast to load page that simply explains the
tag, and then be able to follow a link to see the list of affected packages.
Please telle me what you think about it and if you think it can be
uploaded to lintian.debian.org?
In the meantime I added some features and hosted it on its own domain to
make the custom 404 page work correctly: <https://lintian.club1.fr/>. So, do
you think it could be used to make the lintian.debian.org website back up?
P.S. I'm not subscribed to this list, so please CC me.
Hi,
If there is interest in providing a page that only list the tag
description (without the affected packages), it would be easier to add
it to the existing UDD page (with an additional parameter for example)
than to create a separate service.
As I said, The reason I made this is because it was very frustrating to
click on links to lintian.debian.org as a newbie. Each time, I expected
to see more information about the tag to help me understand what it
exactly meant and how to fix it.
Currently these links lead to nowhere. I think this should be fixed as
it adds a lot of friction for newcomers.
You proposed to fix it by adding the description of the tag on UDD, but
I don't think this is an optimal solution.
1. The page is very slow to load, around 6 to 10 seconds. This is a
problem both for the user, and for the server that need to generate the
page dynamically.
2. The long list of affected packages it costly to render client side so
it is not very inclusive for people with low end devices.
3. The lists of affected packages is not helpful at all in the context
of clicking on a lintian.debian.org link, simply expecting to get more
information on the tag.
For all these reasons I think a static website is a lot more suited than
a dynamic website. So I disagree that "it would be easier to add it to
the existing UDD page", as it is fundamentally a dynamic website.
Moreover, the static site generator is already done, it takes 3 seconds
to generate the whole static website (2.7 of them being lintian
execution itself).
Maybe what you meant by "easier" was "easier to maintain", and I think
maintenance will indeed be very important. Currently, the generator is
under 1000 lines of Go code with a single dependency (outside of the
stdlib). I think it would be very easy for anyone to take over the
project if I become unable to maintain it.
And being a static site, it will be extremely easy to host and will
require almost no resources, so hosting maintenance will also be very low.
However I haven't seen any interest from DSA in setting a redirect from
lintian.debian.org to somewhere else. As I wrote in #1042428, if
lintian.d.o was served by ullmann and managed by the uddadm group, I
would be willing to manage those redirects.
I don't suggest making any redirection of lintian.debian.org to
anywhere. What I am suggesting is uploading a static website back to
lintian.debian.org itself, to fix all the existing broken links out there.
As I already said, the page of each tag includes a link to UDD for
people interested in the list of all affected packages.
Regards
--
Nicolas Peugnet
