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On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> Apparently, though unproven, at 22:51 on Tuesday 07 June 2011, Mark Knecht did |
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> opine thusly: |
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> |
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>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> |
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>> wrote: <SNIP> |
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>> |
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>> >> #370295 |
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>> > |
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>> > Zac responded (comment #21) to my post in that bug with quite a |
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>> > well-reasoned rationale. It makes interesting reading. |
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>> |
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>> It was a good response. |
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>> |
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>> One question left hanging for me goes like this: |
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>> |
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>> I understand nano is a choice. Removing an editor like nano is 99.99% |
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>> safe. There's no way removing nano is going to cause a system to not |
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>> boot or be unable to do updates, so I remove it understanding (now) |
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>> about virtuals. On the other hand how does someone who's not educated |
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>> in booting or the internals of portage know that removing less |
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>> wouldn't cause a problem that stops a machine from booting or makes it |
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>> impossible to do updates? |
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> |
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> There is always an expectation of the minimum understanding needed to be able |
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> to use a technical product at all. The use of less and what to do if you don't |
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> have it falls fair and square into the "you really should already know that to |
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> use Gentoo" category. |
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> |
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> This isn't elitist, it's a technical fact. You have to set the bar somewhere |
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> and there's nothing wrong with that. |
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Hi Alan, |
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While I agree about setting the bar somewhere I think you sidestep |
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answering the real question. |
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I have no problem with saying someone needs to understand what less |
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does. less isn't important. It's just the example at hand today. The |
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'problem' that I'm trying to get closer to answering is how does |
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anyone other than a Gentoo dev, assuming some reasonable amount of |
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effort, know that less isn't called by some script somewhere during |
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the init process? How does one come to understand that maybe less is |
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just as import as python is to the emerge process? (and I know it |
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isn't...) |
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What I didn't like about this issue popping up yesterday is that it |
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altered the idea that average users never touch anything in @system. |
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Iin fact, TTBOMK I've never in 11 or 12 years of running Gentoo ever |
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done an emerge -C on a @system package until this morning when I |
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removed nano. |
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Again, I don't disagree at all with your comments. |
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- Mark |
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