From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Pierre Neidhardt Subject: Re: 05/15: gnu: wesnoth: Rename package to the-battle-for-wesnoth. Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 17:42:04 +0100 Message-ID: <878sx0xo9v.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> References: <20190326131842.7363.84034@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <20190326131844.C73EC209E3@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <87imw4fuee.fsf@gnu.org> <87r2aso7zh.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> <87mulg2whj.fsf@elephly.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:36789) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h9Bcy-00011Y-Ly for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:42:13 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h9Bcx-0001Qu-Bn for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:42:12 -0400 In-Reply-To: <87mulg2whj.fsf@elephly.net> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Ricardo Wurmus , swedebugia Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Ricardo Wurmus writes: > Completion should not be used as an excuse to use long package names. > For one, not everyone is using Bash, so not everyone benefits from our > Bash completions. (Some shells can reuse Bash completions but this does > not invalidate the point.) We could argue the other way around: limited interfaces should not be an excuse for amputated names. The Unix naming scheme ("ls" for "list", etc.) made more sense in a time where computer users had much more limited input (no completion, etc.) and output (small screens). > The package name is just an identifier for command line interaction > purposes. I don't see it this way. The package name is a global variable in the Guix project, and it bears a global semantic value. It's used as a public identifier that has to meaningfully convey the content of the package to the developers but also to the users. > There is no reason why it should be descriptive =E2=80=93 after all, > that=E2=80=99s what the package description is used for. Users can easil= y find > the package they are interested in by using the search feature. Sadly the search feature is even less accessible than bash completion. It's slower and more demanding to use. Since this discussion got started, this hints that there might be a "user experience" issue with our search system. > That will give them the short name by which they can refer to the > package. I don't think this makes for a good user experience in my opinion. This means that we expect everyone to be using the rather slow and verbose "guix package --search" and not expect "the principle of least surprise" to be working. > Having that short name be long serves little purpose. I can think of a some long, explicit names instead of short, cryptic names: =2D Improve search experience, completion, live-search. =2D Avoid users believe existing packages are missing. =2D Avoid packages re-packaging existing package because they failed to find them. =2D Improve consistency. =2D Improve code readability > In the past we agreed to certain naming rules and we put them into the > contributors=E2=80=99 guide. If we want to change or relax those rules w= e need > to reach consensus, collectively. This cannot be a unilateral decision. I never claimed this ;) =2D-=20 Pierre Neidhardt https://ambrevar.xyz/ --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEUPM+LlsMPZAEJKvom9z0l6S7zH8FAlybp9wACgkQm9z0l6S7 zH+olAf+J66i9ZShV7zf6yqOeWwQTwLaKLX0wpBTV4ZY0cI6fEgMieOJMu11r6hr oYF65/0+iKttQsevuKFsGKYbemkR0TyKMYvKtR0E3c0XUcSpsXXjKxw8w6n/tXBg KzPtYZs8jwQNbSV9UdAw+WONGJMdapLqoycltRh022KHgIheXRn/tbeanP+ls1ED wm6ctLsBydMqEd8aZjGTq+mGuZwMuZWFgcN7dkcY7br7W5VXfyV1vmI7LCMxQpB3 GxU34SmcCoRWLiRZcfC3Q8nDPE6KAscSRMAOosPeQCCCOG/fq4brQobBVRR7pNB4 INDgKOj2qn7GzpaU9y6tiomun79ODA== =QDeK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--