Prefab Program Selections (was: RE: Regrouping on "installation profile" idea)

Igor Pechtchanski pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu
Wed Nov 16 05:16:00 GMT 2005


On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:

> > From: Igor Pechtchanski
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:14 PM
> > To: cygwin-apps@XXXXXX.XXX

I know it's a mailing list name, but AHEM...

> > Subject: Re: Prefab Program Selections (was: RE: Regrouping
> > on "installation profile" idea)
> >
> > On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 12:20:26PM -0500, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> > > >On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> > > >So, does ".Task-oriented Bundles" make sense to people?  Or
> > > >".Usage-oriented Bundles"?
> > >
> > > I think either makes sense, yes.  Could you do an ASCII
> > > representation of what you'd expect the screen to look like?
> >
> > With the maximized chooser, of course:
> >
> > [+] All () Default
> >   [+] .Usage-oriented bundles () Default
> >         1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  GCC Development
> >         1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  LaTeX Development
> >         1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  SSH Server
> >         1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Web Server
> >         1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  X Windows
> >   [+] Admin () Default
> >   [+] Archive () Default
> > ...
> >
> > Looking at the above, ".Intended Use" makes even more sense, IMO.
> > BTW, I see no reason to not use spaces in the names of these packages.
>
> Things like ".Intended Use", "Installation Type", etc make sense the very
> first time somebody installs.  The next time that person touches setup on
> their machine, ".Intended Use" only causes confusion, as I described in my
> reply to Mr. Tacvek.  I can guarantee you with proverbial metaphysical
> certitude that the messages on the lists asking "I installed all of Cygwin,
> why can't I run <<program they didn't install>>?!?!" will not only not go
> away, but will be joined by a chorus of people asking (and understandably
> so):
>
> - "I accidentally installed Cygwin for the Intended Use of an SSH server,
> when I really wanted to do C programming!  I'm using a 300-baud smoke-signal
> modem, and there's no way I'm going to redownload the Full Cygwin
> Installation (FCI(tm))!  What do I do?!?!"
> - Q: "Do I need to install Cygwin on two separate machines to do C
> development and Perl development?"
>   - A: "Well, the easiset way to do this is to install CygWINE, run two
> virtual Windows machines, and install a separate Cygwin on each one."
> - "How can I manually edit the registry so I can use both the "SSH Server"
> Installation Type AND the "X Windows" Intended Use?  I can't believe the
> idiots who wrote setup didn't allow for this!"
>
> Metaphysical.  Certitude.

After a hearty LOL, I can't help but agree.  ".Intended Use" does have an
implication of being the only one.  How about ".Needed Functionality"?  Or
even ".Intended Use (more than one can be selected)"?

> > Pasting the below from private mail, to make sure it doesn't get lost:
> >
> > Later, when setup is changed to put package name first in
> > category view, something like this would make sense too:
> >
> > [+] All () Default
> >   [+] .I would like to... () Default
> >         Develop programs using GCC        1.0-1       () Keep   n/a [ ]   1k
> >         Run X windows                     1.0-1       () Keep   n/a [ ]   1k
> >         Run the SSHD server               1.0-1       () Keep   n/a [ ]   1k
> >         Run the Apache web server         1.0-1       () Keep   n/a [ ]   1k
> >         Write documents using LaTeX       1.0-1       () Keep   n/a [ ]   1k
> >   [+] Admin () Default
> >   [+] Archive () Default
> > ...
>
> Now that I like.

Yeah, me too.  But, pasting the rest of that private mail:

==============================================================================
The problem is that you wouldn't actually see the above, you'd see
something like:

[+] All () Default
  [+] .I would like to... () Default
        1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Devel
        1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Run X
        1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Run t
        1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Run t
        1.0-1       () Keep             n/a [ ]         1k  Write
  [+] Admin () Default
...

(at least until the chooser is maximized).
Oh, well, so much for that idea.
==============================================================================

That about says it all.  We can't adopt something that requires special
support from setup (yet, that is).  Once a version of setup with the
necessary changes becomes mainstream and the older versions are
deprecated, we can revisit the category/bundle naming issue.
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
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     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

If there's any real truth it's that the entire multidimensional infinity
of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. /DA



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