[Debtags-devel] devel facet suggestions and text thoughts

[Benjamin Mesing]

Hello


> > What is the meaning of 
> >         Tag: devel::editor
> >         Description: Software development editor
> > Does this include everything used for editing in SW development? That
> > would equal to use::editing. Or does it work for source code editors
> > only (as opposed to e.g. UML editing). In the first case I would vote
> > for dropping it.
> 
> I consider it as a text editor with special features for editing source
> code, such as syntax highlighting, token completion, launching 'make'
> and jumping on the file and line corresponding to compiler errors...
We are very close to an IDE now (add project management and
classviews...). According to your description shouldn't this be more
like: devel::text-editor (or even integrated-text-editor). Otherwise
people will most likely choose it to search for tools like "argouml" and
be dissapointed by the search result.


> > When trying to tag a text editor today, I saw a lot of use::text subtags
> > (like works-with::text:tex, works-with::text:html,
> > works-with::text:unicode...). As this editor supports a lot of syntaxes
> > I've decided to tag with works-with::text only. Is this correct?
> 
> No, I wouldn't do it, as they only work with some of those formats but
> not others, so one can be more descriptive than that.
Hmm, this leads to a general question towards tags with subtags. 
I always considered subtags to be a refinement of the upper tags.
Speaking in types, I would say, the type ww::text:html inherits from the
type ww::text). Meaning, that every ww::text:html implies ww::text, but
not the other way around. I definetely want users to be able to choose
the super tags for their search, resulting in every package that is
tagged with one of the subtags, or the supertag itself. So packages
which do not fit to any specific subtag should be tagged with the
supertag.
I think conceptually this is the question between ww:text being a
subfacet of ww or being a tag inside ww.

[regarding a multi syntax highlighting text-editor]
> I'd do works-with::text:plain for sure.
Agreed, and sorry, I did already sent out the last tag-patch. 


> I'm less sure about tagging gedit with works-with::text:html, though:
> AFAIK the only HTML feature it has is syntax highlighting, so I wouldn't
> consider it substantial.  However, if one looks for editors to work with
> HTML, maybe gedit could fit there.
> 
> Yeah, in general I'd try to figure out a reasonable query involving that
> tag and ask myself if the package fits in there or not.
True, and that is what is so complicated. I don't know if a user
searching for HTML editors is interested in those capable of syntax
highlighting only.

> I'd say that works-with::text:html is for packages which are useful when
> working with HTML.
:-) Now your saying it different, you spoke about substantial features
before. I'd say syntax highlighting is useful, but no substantial
feature. So which way to go? (I think I tend to the substantial feature
one).


> works-with::text:unicode instead is for packages that have special
> unicode-related features, like a unicode charmap or a charset conversion
> software.  The tag description says:
> 
>    Please do not tag programs with simple unicode support,
>    doing so would make this tag useless.
>    Ultimately all applications should have unicode support.
Thanks and sorry, I could have saved myself and everyone else some time
by looking this up myself...


> Yes, that goes together with Torsten's suggestion at [1] to start
> a wiki page with guidelines.
> 
> [1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debtags-devel/2005-November/001005.html
I should bug him about doing this soon. I will try to summarize the
outcome of this discussion, and add it to the wiki as soon as Torsten
finds a place to create one. Btw. what happened to the debtags wikipage?
I knew there was one (and it is still linked from the homepage) -
http://wiki.debian.org/index.cgi?DebTags but it leads to an error
message.


Best regards 

Ben