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On Sunday 05 June 2005 23:55, Ned Ludd wrote: |
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> On Sun, 2005-06-05 at 16:57 -0400, Nathan L. Adams wrote: |
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> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- |
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> > Hash: SHA1 |
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> > |
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> > |
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> > Well obviously there needs to be a consensus on *how* to logically |
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> > organize things before anyone goes willy nilly changing stuff. Do you |
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> > group by what the package is used for (email vs. game vs. web browser) |
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> > or by what it is built from (PERL stuff, Gnome apps, KDE apps). It |
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> > appears that currently its a mix. Is that documented anywhere? |
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> |
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> You raise a good point and sadly that is the unfortunate thing here.. |
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> There is no clear consensus right now and we have yet to really have a |
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> fruitful thread on the subject. I not aware of any intelligent |
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> documentation on this subject either. |
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> |
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> > I personally think the organization should be from an end-user |
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> > perspective as much as possible. Imagine for a moment that you are a |
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> > Genewbie (new Gentoo user). You have a new minimal installation and you |
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> > want to add some applications. How do you know what your choices are for |
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> > an email client, for instance? You could find most things here: |
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> > |
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> > |
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> > Again, I think better |
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> > organization and improved tools are both worth while. |
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> |
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> I fully agree with you on improved tools and would rather see us go |
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> this route before we end up with >300 top level categories. |
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> |
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Recently I spoke with Enrico Zini (Debian Developer). Debian has the same |
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problems in this area, and he is working on Debtags, which is designed to |
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solve this exact problem. Basically what it does is take a few different |
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classifications (like, purpose, environment, language it was written in |
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etc.), and make it configurable what to put in the top level, what to put |
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underneath the top level, etc. This is called faceted classification, and was |
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invented by the Indian librarian and classificationist S.R. Ranganathan in |
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the early 1930s. |
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The system is expandable, users can add their own classifications and |
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categories. |
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The main problem is performance, but I understood that that is mainly due to |
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lack of focus on that area. |
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For more information see the Debtags website, |
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http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/ |
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It may not be the ideal solution yet, but what I understood of it, it is a |
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very powerful system, and quite intuitive for end-users. |
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|
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Jan Jitse |
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