Re: Re: ntfs resize and gtk frontends

[Szakacsits Szabolcs]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 10:43:33PM +0100, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
> > It isn't only about just moving the code to libntfs (I answered this some
> > month ago on bug-parted) but
> 
> Yep, but it is the necessary step to have do the libparted side of
> things.

Sure but also what interface libparted needs? We don't have the time to do
it twice and checking it out isn't the highest priority now (for me).

In high level, resize could tell the constrains and do the resize but 
for example, it's quite probably in some cases it needs to remount 
the partition 3 times. Can [lib]parted live with that?

> I am interested by your opinion, what is it in parted that you dislike
> and why ? 

Mostly my lack of knowledge about its internals :) But seriously,

  - one of the most disliked one described below, even a patch is provided
    to solve it (at least partly),

        http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-parted/2003-05/msg00046.html

    Knowing where things are in sector level is very important 
    occasionally.

  - decimal point usage in sizes is IMHO confusing, useless, ridiculous 
    (partition size is e.g. 315003089.536 bytes). If one needs better 
    resolution then he/she should use smaller units. But see above.

  - no save/restore partition table functionality. Partitioning is very
    messy, complicated, a lot of scenarios. When somethings goes wrong
    (quite frequently if you read/filter many lists/etc) the only you can
    say "sorry, maybe next time" (or try testdisk, gpart, etc -- I hear
    better results than using parted's 'rescue').

  - offered choice 'ignore' to the users when it is _nonsense_ and would
    destroy their data. It does as it were demonstrated several times. 

  - "report this .... bug" instead of "check out ... for updates, etc"
    Unfortunately there isn't any Changelog/FAQ on the Parted site, not to
    mention link to the latest release.

> I personaly am a bit disapointed by the code quality of
> parted/libparted, 

Would you mind to express? 

> and have been toying in doing a reimplmentation in ocaml, with maybe
> some coq-based prooves of good behavior, and having coq generate the
> corresponding code afterward. But i lack some time for this, and am
> not sure an ocaml-based libparted reimplementation would be welcome.

I'm afraid it wouldn't be :) 

  - most distros ship parted but I don't know any who ships ocaml

  - many people know C thus they might contribute but most doesn't 
    know ocaml and should learn it to do so

  - you would throw away a lot of "hidden" knowledge in parted and
    you should rediscover them the hard way

> BTW, the main problem of parted/libparted right now, is that there is no
> CVS repository of it, and that the code has been mostly unavailable
> since may 2003 or so.

Yes and somebody who has the time to maintain it.

        Szaka