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  • From: Arthur Nascimento <tureba AT gmail.com>
  • To: sm-users AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Users] menuconfig for casts
  • Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 03:58:56 -0200

> The whole point of mentioning the notion that spell files are turing
> complete was to illustrate that turning the scripts into menus on the
> fly is hard. Compared with static lists, which are pretty easy to make
> menus of.

Yes, that specific point did catch my attention, that is why I said
earlier of smgl being fully dynamic and the shift needing some things
static. And I got a question about that. Does the dependencies really
have to be in bash scripts? What is wrong with a static listing?
Everything else stays scripts, so sorcery remains turing-complete, if
you guys insist. I say this because after all, it is the way things
are usually done. I can only guess since I have not looked into them
(you are right, I know nothing of package
configuring/building/installing - thank you for the previous
explanation), but I imagine it is the way rpm and deb packages are
made, as well as Portage, as Seth pointed. The particular dependencies
can still be queried to give power, as Seth said, but there is no need
for putting the actual queries along with the dependencies infos or
checking their results right there. I am quite sure (from my very
limited experience) that there is no dependency checking so complex
that you actually need bash for it. Most is as simple as 'require
this', 'require this (optional)', 'require one of these' and 'require
one of these (optional)'. And some rare cases can be taken care of
with just a little more thinking. To apply this idea to the configure
step would be more tricky since configuration can be more complex.
However, I think bash isn't really needed for that either and that all
this is viable and good for the distro. A menuconfig-like interface
would then be 'easy' to make as an optional way to handle the system.
But I am sure you have all heard this before from other users, so I
know it won't happen. I just wanted to understand why.

> Im not very good at reading people and how knowledgable they are on
> something, part of it is email as a communication medium, i do better in
> person and with people I know, and part of it is me (I will be the first
> to admit my people skills are sub-par). So I took a guess rather than
> going for a lowest common denominator (which over email I've found, can
> sometimes make people feel I'm patronizing or insulting them, and thats
> not my intention, ever). I guessed wrong, and for that, I do apologize.

My people skills are terrible as well. I am better through email than
in person actually. That is because I have such a long time to think
on what I have to say. By email I managed to make friends with you and
Thomas and even Seth joined the conversation because of me. If we were
in person I would probably already have been punched real hard by one
of you for saying all those things wrong.

> Based on Thomas's subsequent emails it was fairly clear I hadn't delved
> deep enough into things, and I choose the wrong abstraction level. I
> hope my subsequent emails explain in more concrete terms what I meant.

After all, it seems like not all of the ones on the mailing list are
on the business of mathematics or computer science as I thought in the
beginning. :) Thanks for the support.



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