On 01/12/2011 10:51 PM, C Anthony Risinger wrote: > I want new thoughts about what the meaning of a package is ... and how > it can be better represented for derivation from it's integrals; > source code and user state. the tarball has served us well for a long > time, but ... in the now-time of cheap encryption, distributed clouds, > parallel peers and ... > So you want to talk calculus do you? Perhaps the method of strained time and strained coordinates would would give a better approximation? Poincare-Linstedt maybe? Seriously, I've been very impressed with Arch packaging compared to rpm or deb. KISS has served Arch well. The only thoughts I've had on the issue were with the gzipped package directory format of the repository indexes, but I don't see anything wrong with it. It works as well as it would in a flat file format or in some record oriented db format. I'm sure there is a faster way to do it, but I haven't noticed any slowness with the current system. A package in any distro provides the necessary installables along with a way to check for conflicts and resolve dependencies. The current packages do that well. The only differences that I've seen with pacman vs. some of the others were in areas of handling or anticipating previously installed config or font files that cause rare install failures. But, I think the KISS vs. 'try to anticipate everything' argument ways in favor of not radically changing how pacman handles these issues -- unless there is just a wealth of unused resources laying around to experiment with. Great question. I'd also be interested in what other ideas there are about positive and realistic improvement can be made to the current system. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
