[Debtags-devel] Re: Do we need better documentation about our subsections?

[Benjamin Mesing]

Hello,

> > I know debtags and Enrico, but will debtags
> > replace our current subsections after sarge ?
> > Was it discussed before? Are you needing help?
I would not like this. As Erich stated before it allows a disjoint
hierarchy of packages. Whenever I want to update my packages I skim
through them and look which one is worth the download. Generally I give
the libary section only a quick glance without completely excluding it -
this is something not possible with the debtags approach. There I could
either exclude them or include. But while the first would hide them
completely, the second would not make them appear in a seperate branch.

But I think for search purposes the sections are not usefull any more. I
think one indication of the decline of the subsection is e.g. synaptic
where the packages are no longer grouped in their categories in the
default view. The Sections is a filter like everything else (like
status, full text search..)


>   * Design automatic methods to infer tags from
>     existing package data; for example, Javier
>     Fernndez-Sanguino Pea suggested the use of
>     TFIDF techniques to extract keywords from
>     package descriptions
As I am currently learning for my artificial intelligence exams it came
to my mind that perhaps something from there could help us tagging. It
could be fed with the control files of packages and spit out a tagging. 
It is only an idea and I don't know much about AI in use, i.e. if this
would do any good, but to me it seems like a task predestined for
AI-System. I guess there are a lot of people out there who actually know
AI. Perhaps we should ask on debtags-devel about this?


>   * Inclusion of "Tag:" fields in package
>     control files
I think at least this is where it should come down eventually. When the
tagset is somehow stabelized, every maintainer should tag his packages.
In my opinion it is no option to do the tagging in a central place.
Tagging must become an integral part of the maintainance process. It
should apper in the Debian New Maintainers Guide and everywhere else
where packaging is described. Without eventually leading this, I guess
all other efforts are futile. Therefor in the end there must be a good
documentation of the facets and tags so developers can do it right.

Greetings Ben