[Debtags-devel] Re: Recent progress

[Thaddeus H. Black]

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(This longish post addresses a minor point to Herve,
Erich and Benjamin---and to whoever else is interested.
Occasional lurkers on the list can safely skip it.)

The odd thing about e-mail lists is that when one agrees
with 90 percent of someone's post, the only part one
tends to reply to is the 10 percent.  This is what I
will do here.  As usual, most of what you have written
makes good sense to me, Herve, but I still have one
question.

> While it would be good to have plenty of tools for
> browsing, I think it would be an error to let tag
> maintainers use different possibly inefficient or
> inconsistent tools for tag editions/additions.  The
> best approach would be a Web interface.  While other
> UIs could perfectly be imagined, it would be a pity to
> scatter efforts in the first place.

Personally, I tend to avoid Web interfaces when I can
(note to Benjamin: personally, I use neither KDE nor
Gnome, nor usually even X).  If other people like Web
interfaces (or KDE or Gnome or X), this is fine, but the
two interfaces I would personally prefer to use would be

  1. a plain e-mail interface, as has the Debian BTS;
  and

  2. eventually, for the package maintainer's use,
  a "Tags:" field in debian/control.

Maybe I am typical; maybe not.  I do not know.  However,
my question is, would such simple traditional interfaces
spoil the plan in your view?  Would they ruin something
important, defeat some elegance?  I knew that Erich had
created a Web interface, but it never occurred to me
that the Web interface might be the only interface.  I
had always sort of assumed that, if I did not like the
interface, I could just script another interface which
suited me better.

If what you mean is, "It would be an error to let tag
maintainers use too many complex, novel, possibly
inefficient or inconsistent tools for tag
editions/additions," then I think that you make a valid
point, and I would tend to agree with you.  Is this what
you mean?  As a package maintainer, I really would
prefer an e-mail interface, and better yet a "Tags:"
field in debian/control.

Erich's view is also asked, since he is who is actually
doing the interface work.

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

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