suggestion for pkgdb from ports-mgmt/portupgrade: add more explanation

[Janketh Jay]

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On 09/03/2011 01:56 AM, Lars Eighner wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Sep 2011, Doug Barton wrote:
>
>> On 09/02/2011 14:58, Lars Eighner wrote:
>
>>> The main thing here, of course, is that ports uses "dependency" in
>>> the
>>> exact opposite of its normal English sense (just as twitter uses
>>> "following" in the exact opposite of its normal English sense).
>>>
>>> In normal English 'X is a dependency of Y' means Y is necessary
>>> for X (X
>>> depends on Y)
>>
>> I'm not sure why you believe this to be true.
>
> Because it is a fact.
>
>> Can you give examples from non-technical English prose, and some
>> dictionary definitions to back up your claim?
>
> I am a little hurt that my own authority does not suffice for both
> the New
> York Times Book Review and the Time Literary Supplement (that's in
> London,
> y'all) have remarked on my mastery of the English language. But
> much more
> than that, I am appalled at the state of education in this country
> that you
> do not immediately recognize for yourself that my point is correct,
> once I
> have made it.
>
> There are two senses of 'dependency' in normal English. One means
> 'the state
> of dependence, (MWCD11th expresses this as being a synonym for
> DEPENDENCE;
> this is the oldest sense in English because MWCD11th lists senses in
> historical order), and the other is something that is dependent on
> something
> else. Well, okay, there are three senses, as there is a relatively
> recent
> one meaning a small building (such as a stable, garage, or bike shed)
> adjacent to a larger one.
>
> Almost all of the examples I turn up from grepping my corpus relate to
> international relations except for the most recent entries where it
> is bound
> to 'Chemical.' Well, 'chemical dependency' is perfectly common modern
> English and of course it does not mean the chemical depends on the
> user, but
> just the opposite.
>
> So in normal English, if I write myperlscript.pl, it is a dependency of
> perl. My script cannot run without perl, but perl can go on happily
> without
> my script. Perl does not depend on my script, so it is not the
> dependency. My script does depend on perl, so my script is the
> dependency.
>
> The correct word for what computer people call a dependency is
> 'requisite.'
> Perl is a requisite of my script. My script is a dependency of perl.
>
> Why is there such a thing as emacs cramp? Because the person who
> wrote it
> considered himself such a genius that he did not have to think of
> ergonomics
> and so bound just about everything to ^X and ^C and combinations
> thereof
> (and subsequent geniuses have made the possibly of remapping merely
> theoretical). Why are most editors and word processors just about
> unusable
> (out of the box) for writers? Because programmers are such
> geniuses, the
> idea of consulting working writers before they begin such a project
> seems
> laughable to them.
>
> And that is why ports uses 'dependency' exactly backwards -- the
> authors are
> such geniuses that they cannot be bothered to open a dictionary for
> themselves. I can think of a case in point.
>
> Now it is possible that once upon a time there was a programmer who
> knew
> what dependency meant, and he might have said something like "My
> script has
> a dependency on perl." That is accurate, but very awkward compared
> with
> "Perl is a requisite of my script." And perhaps that awkward
> expression was
> passed around among the programmerlings, as in the game gossip,
> until it
> became "Perl is a dependency of my script," which is dead wrong, so if
> my script is a port, and perl is missing, the report "stale
> dependency" is
> entirely misleading. My script is the dependency. It is not
> stale. It is
> missing its requisite, namely perl.
>
> It is a constant source of confusion for native speakers of English,
> and to
> a degree a source of amusement that documentation which has not yet
> been
> expressed in correct English is being translated into dozens of
> languages
> which take up space in machines that accept the default install.
>
    One of the best most unnecessary replies to something unneeded
I've read in a long, LONG time. Well done, sir! (It's a keeper!)

- -Janky Jay, III


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