Mail Archives: djgpp/2000/07/29/12:56:18
Hello.
Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
> Richard Dawe wrote:
> > I think there's a bit of confusion here. I think Kalum is referring to
> > the DSMs that are distributed with zippo.
>
> I understand that, and those were the DSMs I was referring to as
> well.
OK, I'm glad we're talking about the same DSMs. I understand your concern
about the DSMs distributed with zippo being too basic. The reason they're
basic right now is that it takes time and effort to write them and so far
only Laurynas has put effort into making them realistic. Before zippo
"ships" I intend that they will be made more realistic. Currently their
purpose is to allow people to install DJGPP with just zippo (which works
quite well).
> > sed302b.zip does not (IIRC) contain a DSM. Since zippo has a small
> > database of available packages, it could scan this and match
> > sed302b.zip to the parent DSM. Then it knows how to install sed.
>
> Why would zippo need a DSM file to know ``how to install a package''?
>
> A simple installation boils down to just unzipping the package over
> the old files, and that's it; there's no need for a DSM for this.
Since I've been working on zippo for a while, I guess my language has
changed:
package = archive file containing DSM
archive = archive file
So by "installing a package" I mean unzipping the archive and executing
the steps described in the DSM. So for zippo to install a package, a DSM
is needed. To install an archive is trivial for zippo.
> Anything smarter than a simple unzip must require a non-trivial DSM
> file which cannot possibly come with zippo, unless you, the zippo
> maintainers, invest a lot of effort into writing up such non-trivial
> DSMs. (If you do that, those DSMs might as well be simply added to
> the *.zip files on SimTel.NET, instead of waiting for maintainers to
> do so. ;-)
It looks like we'll have to take this step.
I think I see what you were saying now. I thought you were talking about
/future/ DSMs, not the ones that have already been written for zippo.
> In other words, I was arguing that the default DSMs must be simple
> enough to not convey anything but the ``common-knowledge'' type of
> info, which is hardly specific to the packages. Such a common
> knowledge might as well be simply built into zippo to begin with.
Yes, agreed. "Common-knowledge" DSMs are not useful or worth having.
I'd suggest that the term "default DSM" for the DSMs distributed with
zippo is a bit misleading. They aren't default as such - they should be as
good as the DSMs written for other packages, i.e. full DSMs.
> Am I missing something?
No, I'm just confusing myself, as usual. ;)
Bye, Rich =]
--
Richard Dawe
[ mailto:richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/ ]
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