On Tuesday 04 July 2006 11:00 pm, Kevin Mark wrote: > Hi Aaron, > one of the issues I have with the short and long descriptions and the > suggest,depends is this: > they are meant to be useful to the audience that already knows all > the jargon and lingo used in that particular field and doesnt allow > someone else the change to discover these programs. I may want to > take the time to learn about a field I've never read about in order > to learn how to use a partiular program but the description is not > written to explain what it does to non-experts.
Debian policy is that the package's extended description should be written so that a user who has never encountered the software before can cluefully decide whether it will be of use to them [1]. In practice the descriptions may or may not meet that standard for individual packages, of course. If a package is very specialized - as a random good example, consider the package biococoa.app [2] - I'm not sure its desc necessarily should be written so that nonspecialists can understand the software's purpose. Almost by definition, that person would not be able to make use of it (at that time). Now, one thing that would be nice is if, when you come across a package like that, there is a way you can learn about the software's "social environment" - what it's used for, why it is needed and by who, the field, etc. This can be because you might find it useful, or just out of curiosity. That's a separate issue from informing the specialist whether they can make use of the package, though. > I've thought about > making an alternate index to explain all the lingo used in the > package discriptions. Do you mean that there is a jargon base that is more or less common across all packages (17,000 in main)? Or do you mean, as examples, the set of jargon that will be present amongst the lisp development packages, which would be nearly disjoint with the set of jargon across (say) 3D game packages? > Also, the 'suggests' only show a package name. > This to me is not that useful. I'd like to know the specific reason > why I should install this extra package. I'd like to know in what way > it will add functionality or features to the main program. The > package name used in the suggests field does not enlighten me enough. As far as potd.redsymbol.net is concerned, at some point I plan to add the suggests/recommends/depends lists to the display; each package named there will link to its full description (e.g., http://potd.redsymbol.net/?p=binutils). Maybe I can also incorporate the short description for each, like as a mouseover hint. It would be more informative than just the package name. Your points are thoughtful and insightful IMO. > Cheers, > Kev [1] http://www.us.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s-descriptions [2] for your convenience: http://potd.redsymbol.net/?p=biococoa.app -- Peace, Aaron Maxwell - http://redsymbol.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
