Re: Agreeing on some "rules" for packaging.

[Cyril Roelandt <tipecaml@gmail.com>]

On 08/28/2013 02:51 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Cyril Roelandt <tipecaml@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> At the GHM, a Fedora hacker (whose name I forgot) suggested that it
>> might be time for us to write down some "rules" as to how packaging
>> should be done.
>
> Sounds like a good idea.  In general, when working in a group, I think
> it’s better to discuss what our expectations are, and write as much of
> it down, to avoid any misunderstandings or frustration.  So yes, let’s
> do it.
>
>> For instance, Andreas suggested that patches should only be used if we
>> think they might be applied upstream, thus keeping the patches/
>> directory as small as possible;
>
> Agreed.  Also, patches should start with a comment saying what they do,
> and possibly what their upstream status is (submitted, will never be
> submitted because it’s Guix-specific, etc.); perhaps the format of that
> comment could even be formalized.
>
>> modifications specific to Guix should be written in Scheme.
>
> Sometimes that may be hard or inconvenient though, so I would not set
> that in stone.
>

Yes, I wrote a patch that just added "#if 0 ... #endif" around a test, 
and that'd be harder to do in Scheme.

>> I would also like to define a standard way to order the "#:use-module"
>> at the beginning of each file, and agree on other "cosmetic" rules.
>
> Not convinced about the ordering.  ;-)
>

Isn't there such a convention in Scheme ? I'm often confused when 
looking at the beginning of a Scheme file. NetBSD has such rules for its 
includes 
(http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/share/misc/style?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup).

>> What do you think ?
>
> These are good examples of the kind of rules we may want to discuss and
> adopt.


I'm also wondering how to name python packages. foo ? python-foo and 
python3-foo ? python2-foo and python-foo ?


Cyril.