DebConf7 Debtags news

[Enrico Zini]

Hello,

besides the automated maintenance of tags, here are other exciting news
that came out of DebConf7:

 1. Anthony Towns implemented an "automated byhand" feature in dak that
    finally allows me to upload tags into the FTP archive without the
    manual intervention of a FTP-master.

    Yes!  This means that, from now on, tag updates will get into the
    Packages file whenever we want them to!

 2. I've created a 'prod page' at http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/prod/
    where we can list all sorts of statistics that could push people to
    tag their packages.

 3. Thanks to Alain Schroëder I've implemented a "Supermarket Engine" in
    the tagging interface, that uses the same algorithm used in
    marketing researchers to find trends in the tag database and use
    them to provide smart context-sensitive suggestions in the
    interface.

 4. Libept and ept-cache!  They bring together apt, debtags, popcon and
    xapian, and I'm talking with many people (namely the EDOS project,
    Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and ITeRating.com) to get more fancy
    metadata to throw in the mix.  

    Having all these technologies together allows interesting things,
    like using tags to compensate for shortcoming in package
    descriptions (see http://www.enricozini.org/2007/debtags/xapian-tags.html).

    And a fast 'related packages' function (see
    http://www.enricozini.org/2007/debtags/ept-cache-related.html).

    And a tool you can use to improvise a talk in your local LUG (see
    http://www.enricozini.org/2007/tips/conversation-starter.html).

    Also, the completely rewritten libept library is now very easy to
    use, and can be used without activating the Apt data source.
    
    This allows libept to be used to in all the current package managers
    that already use libapt-pkg in their unique way, without stepping on
    their feet.

 5. Together with Miriam Ruiz we created a prototype little specialised
    package manager for games: svn://svn.debian.org/pkg-games/software/ui 
    that shows how Debtags can be used to build simple and effective
    interfaces.

 6. The debtags index has been changed to include a table of package
    names, and it does not need anymore to stay perfectly in sync with
    the apt index.  This means that we need an update of the index only
    after new package data is fetched by APT, instead of also after
    every single install or removal of a package.  This will be
    implemented once I figure out how to detect the difference between
    these two operations.


Ciao,

Enrico

-- 
GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico at debian.org>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debtags-devel/attachments/20070622/af00f449/attachment.pgp