From owner-freebsd-www Wed Dec 11 12:19:54 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id MAA06186 for www-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 12:19:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id MAA06180; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 12:19:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA02451; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 15:19:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 15:19:50 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Satoshi Asami cc: ports@freebsd.org, www@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ports/2190: need cross-reference to xpdf from X11 ports tree In-Reply-To: <199612110118.RAA16308@silvia.HIP.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-www@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Satoshi Asami wrote: > * On the ports web page, xpdf is listed under graphics, but not under > * X11. I looked under X11 first, and not finding it, assumed that it wasn't > * ported to FreeBSD. Shouldn't there be a crossreference here somewhere? > > The "x11" category is not intended for X applications (otherwise half > the ports tree would be there), With respect to xpdf, on the three occasions I've updated my port, I've always had trouble finding it as I instinctively equate postscript with two-dimensional static media, namely "print". I think a cross refernce there would be quite useful. > There also should be a way to add a short "comment" field to the > category name, as currently the ports web page doesn't include one and > is sort of cryptic. [WARNING: rambling ahead] Back in the good old days when the ports collection was small, finding things in a primative organizational scheme was easy. Now that the collection is growing by leaps and bounds, the interface to the collection itself becomes more critical. Activities range from simply finding new ports, to knowing what versions of what ports you have installed, being alerted when those particular ones have been updated (including update summaries), semi-automated retrieval and installation ("Click here to install") and the like. Most of this boils down to database operations. When thinking about how to improve on the www interface (and there is lots of room for that!), I keep scratching my head thinking "gee, if this stuff were all in a relational database, this would be a snap!". The ports collection meta-information is set up well for orchestrating the building of ports, but as a database, it seems a little ad-hoc. Cvs is handy for version control on individual files, but pathetic for just about any other sort of database type task. It is sort of like a library catalog where the only available search key is the call number. The ports collection clearly needs more than that, thus the creation of a secondary database, currently in the form of the INDEX file. Generating this repeatedly from scratch is terribly inefficient. What is needed is a secondary database that is updated in real-time as the cvs repository is updated. I'm no cvs wizard, but it should be possible to plant a hook in cvs to manage the updates in real-time as commits are made. A script would only need to know the name of the single affected port and it could then collect whatever information is needed for a rich, rapid access secondary database. This strikes me as being phenomenally more efficient than re-scanning the entire cvs port collection and rebuilding the INDEX file from scratch every time. This could also serve as the basis for a client-server ports/package management system, allowing people to keep their *installed* ports up-to-date without having to have the ports collection itself installed locally. Again, as the ports collection grows, keeping a local copy becomes more of a problem for people tight on disk space. Anyway, to the point, I think its time to start a closer evaluation of the ports mechanism from a access interface standpoint and see how things can be improved. In a year or so, when we have 3274 ports, I think the current arrangement will become rather awkward! Okay, I've got two more term paper to write in the next couple days. More later... -john