From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 19 13:10:40 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B9F6A16A410; Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:10:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: from igloo.linux.gr (igloo.linux.gr [62.1.205.36]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E85113C47E; Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:10:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: from kobe.laptop (vader.bytemobile.ondsl.gr [83.235.244.135]) (authenticated bits=128) by igloo.linux.gr (8.13.8/8.13.8/Debian-3) with ESMTP id l6JCt9q1000938 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:56:46 +0300 Received: from kobe.laptop (kobe.laptop [127.0.0.1]) by kobe.laptop (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id l6JCsBKK009894; Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:54:40 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@FreeBSD.org) Received: (from keramida@localhost) by kobe.laptop (8.14.1/8.14.1/Submit) id l6JCsBvQ009893; Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:54:11 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@FreeBSD.org) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:54:10 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20070719125410.GA9766@kobe.laptop> References: <200707190121.l6J1LOvd007607@repoman.freebsd.org> <20070719054803.GA1002@gothic.blackend.org> <469F1D0F.2090307@FreeBSD.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <469F1D0F.2090307@FreeBSD.org> X-Hellug-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-Hellug-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-3.925, required 5, autolearn=not spam, ALL_TRUSTED -1.80, AWL 0.47, BAYES_00 -2.60) X-Hellug-MailScanner-From: keramida@freebsd.org X-Spam-Status: No Cc: doc-committers@freebsd.org, Chin-San Huang , cvs-all@freebsd.org, cvs-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:10:40 -0000 On 2007-07-19 01:13, Doug Barton wrote: >>> en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports chapter.sgml >>> Log: >>> - Introduce another way for upgrading packages and ports using bpkg(8). >> >> I'm not sure the Handbook has the vocation to talk about all >> available tools to manage ports and packages. [...] > > FWIW, I (with portmaster author hat on) am sort of ambivalent about > this issue. I've avoided adding anything to that chapter about > portmaster because my personal feeling is that a laundry list of > tools isn't useful to the user, especially if all the descriptions > are the same size as the ones that are there now. > > What I think would be more useful (and again, I'm speaking only for > myself) would be a list of tools available with a brief description > of each, and links to outside sources (web pages, pkg-descr files, > etc.) where an interested user can get more information. I do think > that letting our users know that there are tools available is a good > thing, I don't think mini-manuals for each tool is appropriate in > that context. This sounds nice. It would also be nice to have articles like: "Managing thirdparty ports & packages with portupgrade" "Managing thirdparty ports & packages with portmaster" "Managing thirdparty ports & packages with XXX" in the doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/... collection, so the Handbook can talk about the general, common ideas behind port management, and the articles can turn into mini-manuals. It may even be possible to talk about one or two (the 'official' port management tools), and then move the rest into separate articles. If the tools mentioned in the articles get 'official' status or one of the currently official tools gets dropped, or gets stale, we can move chunks of the Handbook from articles to the book, or from the book to standalone articles. Does this sound like something which makes more sense than blowing up the size of the Handbook with full manuals about all the available tools we have now? - Giorgos