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  • From: Nick Jennings <nkj AT namodn.com>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] optional_depends descriptions?
  • Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 12:33:54 -0800

On Sun, Oct 27, 2002 at 08:16:50AM -0700, Jason Flatt wrote:
> On Sunday 27 October 2002 01:34 am, Eric Sandall wrote:
> > Nick Jennings said:
> > > Wouldn't it be usefull to have maybe a quick one liner description of
> > > what this enables/disables for the spell in question?
> >
> > ? This is already done via optional_depends, as my previously posted
> > example shows. Or do you mean something else?
>
> I'm not trying to come down on you, Eric, but I agree with Nick, and your
> previous post is a good example:
>
> optional_depends "Linux-PAM" \
> "--flag-for-swat" \
> "--flag-for-no-swat" \
> "for SWAT support"
>
> This is only useful for people who know what SWAT is and why one would want
> it. A better one liner might be: "to be able to configure SAMBA via a
> Web-based interface"
>
> There are many spells in the grimoire with worse definitions than the one
> you
> proposed:
>
> optional_depends "widget" "" "" "for widget support"
>
> This is almost totally useless. What does widget support get me? Why do I
> want it? Is widget support a good thing, or does it just take up hard
> drive
> space? I can't even make an educated guess, based on that information.
>
> I had a spell I cast a couple of weeks ago with several of those sorts of
> optional deps in there. I had no idea if I wanted the optional stuff or
> not.
> I didn't know what they were supposed to do to or for the spell I wanted to
> install. A little more verbage to clarify those optional deps is, IMO, A
> Good Thing(tm).

Exactly, I didn't have a sourcemage box in front of me to give examples,
but you've hit the nail on the head. I often am at a complete loss when
selecting whether I want an optional depends or not, and simply have
to guess.

It's really annoying.

- Nick





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