[Pkg-octave-devel] Octave Package Meta-Package

[Thomas Weber]

[putting Bill into CC]

On 18/05/08 17:59 +0200, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
> * John W. Eaton <jwe at bevo.che.wisc.edu> [2008-05-18 10:36]:
> 
> > On 18-May-2008, Bill Denney wrote:
> > 
> > | Would it be feasible to make a meta-package that depends on the current 
> > | version of all octave packages?
> > 
> > I would prefer to avoid doing this.
> 
> Me too.  I do not see the point in doing it.  

I do see a point. I can't imagine anybody going through a list of 30+
packages and deciding about each installation individually. So in the
end, people just install everything and are done with it: 
	space is cheap, time is expensive.


> > But if you decide to do it, then please avoid including packages that
> > replace core Octave functions, or at least avoid loading those packages by
> > default.  I think users should be aware that they are replacing core
> > functions, otherwise, there is likely to be confusion when they get
> > different results depending on whether they have some optional package
> > installed.  It seems likely that they won't even know that an optional
> > package has been installed, or that a core function has been replaced.
> 
> I agree with John on the above, in principle.  However, I just uploaded the
> octave-nan package that overrides some core functions.  I did patch the
> package in order to have its functions autoloaded.  As I explained in
> previous thread [1] in this mailing list, I think that it is important in
> Debian that packages "work" out of the box by default.

For what it's worth, I didn't check for the other packages, but there
are packages in octave-forge's main/ directory that don't autoload.
Which brings us to the question: apart from overriding Octave's
defaults, are there other reason why a package shouldn't be autoloaded?

> We might consider introducing a debconf question asking something like:
> 
>       By installing this package (octave-nan), some core functions
>       of Octave will be overridden, unless you choose to not 
>       autoload the functions.
> 
>       Should the octave-nan functions be autoloaded (default: Yes)?
> 
>                  <Yes>           <No>
>    
> This may be an overkill, though.

We are talking about a Debconf question for each package here. I fear we
will reach a level of complexity for the add-on packages far beyond
packaging Octave itself.

	Thomas