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Johnson David DavidJohnson at Siemens.com
Wed Sep 17 16:53:11 PDT 2003


On Wednesday 17 September 2003 04:09 pm, Michal Pasternak wrote:

> ... even if Debian's way is the one, right way to do that? That would
> be a little silly, don't you think? I am really, really interested
> how would you solve this problem.

I think we need to define exactly what we want to do first. In terms of 
wm menu configuration, we don't have anything. Debian's way might be 
the best solution. But in terms of package management, I'll take ports 
and portupgrade over apt-get any day.

> > So definitely get a prototype of
> > something working first. It's an easier sell that way.
>
> You _won't_ make it right basing on "prototypes".

And you won't make headway saying "I haven't coded anything yet, but I 
need you to make these changes to your port". By "prototype", and mean 
a workable system with a handful of modified ports to demonstrate with.

> > Stuff to be hashed out. Personally I think C/C++ is the best to
> > code this in.
>
> Well, personally, I don't.

We still need to define exactly what we want to do. If it's just 
modifying menus, then of course use Perl/Python/Ruby/Tcl/Etc. Heck, use 
bourne! But actually writing a new installer might entail C. A GUI that 
needs to be responsive might need to be in C++, depending on the 
toolkit. Fitting this all onto floppy number two for a network install 
might very well preclude most scripting languages in favor of a small 
tight C utility.

p.s. Someone needs to set up a new list for this.

David


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