[SM-Discuss] [hackers] svn Gwydion does not build

ron macroron at gmail.com
Thu Dec 11 09:57:22 EST 2008


Robert,

I will look in to the the sorcery api and documentation.
(I hope someone here has an online link at hand).

I have installed a base system, managed to write a basic firewall, and
started to be comfortable casting spells.

I got stuck in casting xorg in order to cast a basic tiling window manager
and gave up.
I was too shy to ask on

I now live with with kde 4 on fedora 10 as my personal desktop system.

I also have kde 4 installed on Arch Linux.

My favorite distro so far.

I agree with most of your answers to my questions.

I guess I needed a human and intelligent person to respond to my concerns.

I plan in the new year to study the api documentation and start learning
shell scripting.

As soon as I am comfortable, expect to see me on irc and sm-discuss, now
that I have made contact.

Right now I am busy trying to convert my meager savings to gold. :)

Thank You again,

Ron

-
Linux
f8
2.6.25.14-69.fc8
#1 SMP Mon Aug 4 14:20:24 EDT 2008
i686
athlon
i386
GNU/Linux
--

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Robert Figura <
rfigura at aubergine.zwischengesicht.de> wrote:

> ron <macroron at gmail.com> schrieb:
>
> > I wanted to avoid the work of learning bash, to understand the way your
> > system scripts work together.
>
> Look into it and you will see that the code is well written and even
> appropriately documented: Just cast bashdoc and look for the sorcery api
> documentation. (I hope someone here has an online link at hand)
>
> > I was asking why great distros like Source Mage and Gentoo do not make it
> > easier for novices to install, use, and learn about the underlying system
> > and development environment.
>
> It *is* easy if you're a programmer or an experienced admin. I guess
> when you say "easy" you refer to having a graphical user interfaces.
>
> To my opinion this is illusory because the GUI's we have seen are only
> meant to do easy tasks. It's like trying to play a piano using a single
> finger (the mouse) or sing an opera only by grunting. If you want to do
> more complicated things you will need to use ten fingers (a keyboard)
> or you may need to put lyrics into the song.
>
> I am less of a scientific person and more a programmer and to me reading
> source is often preferrable to reading manuals. This is why: In the
> open source world, to have a program requires a programmer at first. To
> have a manual requires a ready product (a program) to explain. But
> programs continue to be developed and writing documentation is only fun
> as long as you don't readily understand what you need...
>
> So in practice we often have oversimplified or outdated instructions
> and i see only one option: Read the source! This will only be as hard
> as the programmer made it. Translating badly written code to one's
> favorite language doesn't help very much (IMHO).
>
> But if you would like to contribute instructions to sourcemage, by all
> means do so! I'm sure: The crowd will love you for it and the devs will
> happily provide all the info you need. To get started all you need is
> to make yourself an account for the wiki.
>
> > Making something easy to use and learn about does not seem to me to be to
> > much to ask.
>
> If you are not so much concerned about the details (maybe to build
> something new upon sorcery) but about using the system there is a
> fabulous online support on the irc network called #sourcemage. Since
> this distribution has a comparatively small community this seems to be a
> very appropriate way to respond to the afforementioned problem of less
> than optimal documentation (IMO).
>
> > The language of instruction man and machine in this case is bash.
> >
> > Why not use an easy to learn, modern, object oriented, scripting
> language.
>
> Because bash (or rather sh) is *the* standard for communicating
> administrative commands to a modern computer system. Remember we're
> talking about multi purpose systems and not just an electronic
> typewriter.
>
> > Why do we have to always have to start from scratch?
>
> This is going to be philosophical but if you would be a programmer you
> could compare very old systems to programs which have been rewritten
> very often. Most programmers i talked to see the advantage of doing
> things from scratch. The gain of having written a prior version (try
> spelling that as prototype) is the experience for the developer and to
> find a new perspective or a better approach.
>
> > Aren't there any software translators, man or software to translate from
> > bash to a higher level, easier to understand scripting language.
>
> No. There are tools to dive into existing systems. From boosted editors
> to search tools to diagram generators for class hierarchy to debuggers
> and run-time tracers and even more advanced refactoring tools.
>
> > I hope I have made myself understood a little bit clearer.
>
> At first i only grasped "Hey let's rewrite sorcery in <insert favorite
> language here>" and i wasn't sure wether this was meant to be a joke or
> a trolling or speculation without background. I have to apologize to
> you if you were in fact asking for help to install / understand
> sourcemage or learn programming.
>
> Regards
>  - Robert Figura
>
> P.S.: I'd also like to take back my rant about your signature because i
>      now think it must have been sent accidentally.
>
> --
> /* mandlsig.c 0.42 (c) by Robert Figura */
> I=1702;float O,o,i;main(l){for(;I--;putchar("oO .,\nt>neo.ckgel-t\
> agidif@<ra urig FrtbeRo"[I%74?I>837&874>I?I^833:l%5:5]))for(O=o=l=
> 0;O*O+o*o<(16^l++);o=2*O*o+I/74/11.-1,O=i)i=O*O-o*o+I%74*.04-2.2;}
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