On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 08:10:21PM +0000, James Troup wrote:
Hi,
Sorry for the delay in processing this package.
Could you please explain the rationale for a separate -doc package and/or consider merging it into the main or -dev package?
I was following unofficial Debian/Haskell guidelines when I created this package. It is my first foray into Haskell-integrated packaging.
I am certainly amenable to the idea of merging. I have copied Debian-haskell on this mail to see if any more experienced people have any thoughts on the matter.
(The package in question is a small library which builds into -dev/-prof/-doc binary packages)
The usual rational for -doc packages is when the documentation is very large and that doesn't really seem to be the case here (the .deb is 15K) and there's a cost to all users (not just users of your package) by adding extra packages (increased Packages file size -> increased memory usage for apt, etc.).
On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 05:06:20PM -0400, Matthew Danish wrote:
On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 08:10:21PM +0000, James Troup wrote:
Could you please explain the rationale for a separate -doc package and/or consider merging it into the main or -dev package?
The usual rational for -doc packages is when the documentation is very large and that doesn't really seem to be the case here (the .deb is 15K) and there's a cost to all users (not just users of your package) by adding extra packages (increased Packages file size -> increased memory usage for apt, etc.).
My reason was that any library's docs have HTML links to the base library docs, so pull in 8M of ghc6-doc (plus the library docs themselves add up when you have a number of them installed). If you don't think this is sufficient reason then please let me know and I will merge all my -doc packages into their -dev counterparts (at which point ghc6-doc might as well be merged into ghc6 too).
In the future it would be nice to have a single doc package and the library compiled for multiple Haskell implementations, but we aren't there yet.
Thanks Ian
Ian Lynagh igloo@earth.li writes:
My reason was that any library's docs have HTML links to the base library docs, so pull in 8M of ghc6-doc (plus the library docs themselves add up when you have a number of them installed). If you don't think this is sufficient reason then please let me know and I will merge all my -doc packages into their -dev counterparts (at which point ghc6-doc might as well be merged into ghc6 too).
Well it's a reason at least ;-)
I don't know the packages well enough to judge whether it's a good one. However I would say that ghc6-doc is only an 900Kb deb and 8Mb installed isn't a great deal these days, especially if you're a developer.
So, on balance, I'd wonder if it wouldn't be unreasonable to have the library's documentation in the main package and suggest or recommend, if not depend on ghc6-doc?
debian-haskell@lists.urchin.earth.li
-
Ian Lynagh -
James Troup -
Matthew Danish