Re: Software/HD ecology (was Re:...Bug in Emacs 21.3.50)

[Ajanta]

 Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com> wrote:

> > "EnglishOnly" 
> And "FrenchOnly" and "GermanOnly" and "EnglishAndFrenchOnly" and
> "ChineseAndEnglishOnly" and ... ?
> Or are you going to claim that we should not care about non-English users ?

Well, there are *hundreds* of langauges in the world: which one would
you not want to "care" about? Sooner or later "internationalization"
has got to mean not just *adding* things but also *selecting* them.
Maybe this should be done at configure stage, via options, or
interactively, oe some other way. It is for the programmers to figure
out the best way, but the time to start thinking about it is now.

> > Why is that comparable with the clutter of tens of MB and 100's of files
> > scattered around?
> 
> Could you expand on your "scattered around" ?

I didn't keep a tally but here is an example. I recently I obtained a
beta distribution (not emacs) which didn't work out (fair enough,
that's a known risk in beta) and I deleted it. Or so I thought. I still
keep running into some files from it. What gives me pause is that these
are the ones I recognize because of the way they are named. There are
many whose names mean nothing to me, I don't know which program they
belong to, so they'll lie around. (At first, I did take a shot in the
dark and tried "make uninstall", but it didn't work.)

As I mentioned in the beginning post of this thread, the distribution
of Emacs 21.3.50 that I got for Mac OSX has *three* executables of
identical size but different inodes. This makes no sense at all.

A
>From help-gnu-emacs-bounces@gnu.org  Wed Dec 11 22:50:11 2002
Path: 
shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssrv26.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Anil Trivedi <anil@null.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.text.tex,gnu.emacs.help
Message-ID: <111220022147059290%anil@null.invalid>
References: <041220020952400758%ajanta@no.spam>
        <56cfb0e3.0212041458.5eab182a@posting.google.com>
        <x5k7ipl35x.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <061220020416350201%ajanta@no.spam>
        <slrnav1ed1.ho.smullerin@esb.bbn.com> <m2hedrm4oc.fsf@owlbear.local>
        <84bs3xsyi8.fsf@lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de> 
<071220021155280606%ajanta@no.spam>
        <5ld6obj8il.fsf@rum.cs.yale.edu> <091220021652087216%ajanta@no.spam>
        <101220021125583826%ajanta@no.spam> <vf3cp5ix2u.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk>
        <vf3cp4k92x.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk> <111220021101520860%ajanta@no.spam>
        <vfadjcif3n.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk> <111220021253524057%ajanta@no.spam>
        <84of7s703d.fsf@lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de>
Organization: None
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit
Mail-Copies-To: nobody
User-Agent: Thoth/1.5.10 (Carbon/OS X)
Lines: 49
NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.109.165.60
X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net
X-Trace: newssrv26.news.prodigy.com 1039668269 ST000 64.109.165.60 (Wed, 11
        Dec 2002 22:44:29 CST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 22:44:29 CST
X-UserInfo1: 
TSU[@SBE[JTKB\@[GRNNOTPAUSXB@DTMNHWB_EYLJZ]BGIELLNTC@AWZWDXZXQ[K\FFSKCVM@F_N_DOBWVWG__LG@VVOIPLIGX\\BU_B@\P\PFX\B[APHTWAHDCKJF^NHD[YJAZMCY_CWG[SX\Y]^KC\HSZRWSWKGAY_PC[BQ[BXAS\F\\@DMTLFZFUE@\VL
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 04:44:29 GMT
Xref: shelby.stanford.edu comp.sys.mac.apps:348668
        comp.sys.mac.advocacy:917432 comp.text.tex:237946 gnu.emacs.help:108022
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Software/HD ecology
X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5
Precedence: list
List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs.gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Post: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
List-Subscribe: <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>,
        <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
List-Archive: <http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/help-gnu-emacs>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>,
        <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 03:50:11 -0000

Stefan Monnier wrote:

> As maintainers, it's in our own interest to keep things uncluttered,
> so we strive to find some logic to things such that we can organize our
> files and keep files in their logical place...I don't claim that the current
> arrangement is perfect, but it takes time and energy to think about how 
> to make it better and to fix the various places where things aren't 
> consistent and logical, so help is most welcome.

Kai Großjohann wrote:

> Writing these few extra lines is a LOT of work. Most important of all, it's 
> not clear what to delete.  There would be *endless* arguments about which 
> files to remove and which files to keep.  Emacs consists of 2297 files (on 
> my system), it's very difficult to untangle dependencies on them.

I would like to offer a few general suggestions for any large program,
not just emacs.

First of all, you should have a clear idea as to which files are needed
to complie the program but not to run it later, and which ones will be
needed forever to run the program. It is a sorry state of affairs if
the creators and maintainers themselves don't know the "dpendencies";
that indicates serious future troubles and the sooner one starts
correcting the situation the better.

1. You need "clean" and "distclean" to recover from failed compile
attempts. I think most programs do have this. (Personally, I might just
re-open the .tar file and start over.)

2. Once the program compiles, and works fine, the user should be able
to delete all files that were needed in compiling but will not be
needed in running it, or in uninstalling it.

3. Finally, should the user decide that this is not his kind of progam,
there should be an uninstall option that does safely and cleanly remove
everything. He should not have to go around checking in various bin,
share, libexec, man, lib, doc directories, etc., and guessing just
which files might belong to the program he wants to delete.

This seeme to be a minimum framework for responsible software
distribution.

4. As for languages, this is an early stage in globalization and the
"bloat" is perhaps manageable, but in a few years we may see support
for hundreds of languages and dozens of scripts. We would need to
enable a user to select what he needs and skip the rest.

Anil Trivedi
>From miles@lsi.nec.co.jp Wed Dec 11 23:59:09 2002
Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13)
        id 18MLQu-0003zr-00
        for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 11 Dec 2002 23:58:48 -0500
Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13)
        id 18MLQr-0003tG-00
        for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 11 Dec 2002 23:58:47 -0500
Received: from tyo202.gate.nec.co.jp ([202.32.8.202])
        by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13)
        id 18MLQq-0003ja-00; Wed, 11 Dec 2002 23:58:44 -0500
Received: from mailgate4.nec.co.jp ([10.7.69.193])gBC4wgU29147;
        Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:58:42 +0900 (JST)
Received: from mailsv.nec.co.jp (mailgate51.nec.co.jp [10.7.69.190]) by
        mailgate4.nec.co.jp (8.11.6/3.7W-MAILGATE-NEC) with ESMTP
        id gBC4wdn14892; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:58:39 +0900 (JST)
Received: from mcsss2.ucom.lsi.nec.co.jp ([10.30.114.133]) by mailsv.nec.co.jp
        (8.11.6/3.7W-MAILSV-NEC) with ESMTP
        id gBC4wCs10471; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:58:38 +0900 (JST)
Received: from mcspd15.ucom.lsi.nec.co.jp (mcspd15 [10.30.114.174])
        id gBC4wCB06747;        Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:58:12 +0900 (JST)
Received: by mcspd15.ucom.lsi.nec.co.jp (Postfix, from userid 31295)
        id EF1063701; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:58:11 +0900 (JST)
Sender: miles@mcspd15.ucom.lsi.nec.co.jp
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
References: <041220020952400758%ajanta@no.spam>
        <56cfb0e3.0212041458.5eab182a@posting.google.com>
        <x5k7ipl35x.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <061220020416350201%ajanta@no.spam>
        <slrnav1ed1.ho.smullerin@esb.bbn.com> <m2hedrm4oc.fsf@owlbear.local>
        <84bs3xsyi8.fsf@lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de>
        <071220021155280606%ajanta@no.spam> <5ld6obj8il.fsf@rum.cs.yale.edu>
        <091220021652087216%ajanta@no.spam>
        <101220021125583826%ajanta@no.spam>
        <vf3cp5ix2u.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk>
        <vf3cp4k92x.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk>
        <111220021101520860%ajanta@no.spam>
        <vfadjcif3n.fsf@rpc71.cs.man.ac.uk>
        <111220021253524057%ajanta@no.spam>
        <84of7s703d.fsf@lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de>
        <111220022147059290%anil@null.invalid>
System-Type: i686-pc-linux-gnu
Blat: Foop
From: Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp>
Date: 12 Dec 2002 13:58:11 +0900
In-Reply-To: <111220022147059290%anil@null.invalid>
Message-ID: <buofzt37s0s.fsf@mcspd15.ucom.lsi.nec.co.jp>
Lines: 20
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Subject: Re: Software/HD ecology
X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5
Precedence: list
Reply-To: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs.gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Post: <mailto:help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
List-Subscribe: <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>,
        <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
List-Archive: <http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/help-gnu-emacs>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>,
        <mailto:help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 04:59:09 -0000

Anil Trivedi <anil@null.invalid> writes:
> 1. You need "clean" and "distclean"
> 2. Once the program compiles, and works fine, the user should be able
>    to delete all files that were needed in compiling but will not be
>    needed in running it, or in uninstalling it.
> 3. Finally, should the user decide that this is not his kind of progam,
>    there should be an uninstall option
> This seeme to be a minimum framework for responsible software
> distribution.

Well, at least this is less vague that what you said before, but since
emacs already does all these things*, what's your complaint?

Do you want to report a bug with one of the make targets?

-Miles

* You need to do `make install' before (2), but that's alright
-- 
Fast, small, soon; pick any 2.