[Debtags-devel] spellchecking debian-packages

[Thaddeus H. Black]

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Justin B Rye:

> And when the day (decade) comes when repository
> sections are finally retired, will the desktop
> app-menus and so on be basing their hierarchies on
> debtags?

Yes.  This can be done in principle.  The beauty of the
Debtags design is that just about anything relevant can
be done in principle.

> I suppose that could never be quite perfectly
> automatable;

On the contrary.  In fact the enhancement needed to
facilitate such usage has been on my mind for some time.
Basically, Debtags will need the abilities

  (a) to flag as *primary* no more than one tag per
  facet per binary, and

  (b) to extend the existing package Priority system,
  effectively subdividing the "optional" Priority
  level both vertically and horizontally.

I am willing to admit, however, that the right time has
not yet come for either of these enhancements, which
would deflect us from the basic immediate need to
complete the full tagging of the archive.  Point (b)
promises some controversy, which I think that we do not
need now.  Point (a) similarly is not needed now and
would be distracting.

So, Justin, when you say,

> And when the day (decade) comes ...

I think that you wisely frame the days and decades
right.  We need to be patient with this.  Right now, the
Debian Developers are gradually incorporating the
Debtags concept into the core of their collective
development mindset.  This is very good.  It has taken
us thousands of man-hours to get this far.  We want to
continue and complete this good trend before opening
many new horizons; and we already have everything we
need in place to accomplish this immediate goal.  Enrico
gives a featured talk on Debtags, live at Debconf5 to
the body of Developers in Finland next month.  This is
another milestone for us.

But, yes, I would say that one day you will be able to
write a simple script to autogenerate high-quality
desktop app-menus from debtags.  Projection: 2008,
etch+2.

Good idea.  See [1] for further reading.

--=20
Thaddeus H. Black
508 Nellie's Cave Road
Blacksburg, Virginia 24060, USA
+1 540 961 0920, t@b-tk.org, thb@debian.org

[1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debtags-devel/2004-July/000003=
.html

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