Re: Documentation: swarm-symbols

[Alex Lancaster]

>>>>> "MD" == Marcus G Daniels <address@hidden> writes:

>>>>> "PJ" == pauljohn  <address@hidden> writes:
PJ> 2. I wish the ftp directories like ANARCHY had subdirectories for
PJ> swarm versions.  It is always very frustrating to me when I
PJ> download something and find it worked with some different version
PJ> than I have.

MD>    Anarchy \An"arch*y\, n. [Gr. ?: cf. F. anarchie. See {Anarch}.]
MD> 1. Absence of government; the state of society where there is no
MD> law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion.
                                                
MD> If you run into a problem and it is frustrating to you, the
MD> globally optimal thing to do fix the problem and send the
MD> maintainer a patch to get them in sync with the latest version.
MD> Then there will be one less thing to be frustrated about.

My $0.02 - just to spice up the discussion ;-) The anarchy directory
is really a free-for-all, the fact that we have taken the liberty,
from time to time, to update some apps, is not something that should
really be relied upon.  That is really the role of the "eval"
subdirectory.  On this subject, most things that were places in the
anarchy directory are still there, I have files that go back to
November 1996.

I agree that at some stage it would be nice to construct a more
systematic naming convention for apps (including maybe a subdirectory
conventions), and some thing a like a Redhat-style RPM system for
Swarm, (any volunteers we are happy to talk to, as always!).  However,
until that day, I don't think that a semi-formal system is a good
idea, as more often than not, it may end up lulling the user into a
false sense of security ("but it said this version would work on this
system...<yadda, yadda> ").  Automation and naming conventions really
work best when there the automation is total, and the is some
momemntum behind the conventions, no automation is better than
half-baked automation, basically.  In the spirit of CAS, we need to
let it emerge ;-)

So leaving the directory in the anarchic state better reflects the
true state of code (as frustrating as that may be - that's still the
state of Swarm development in general!).  This shouldn't stop
contributors from coming up with a naming convention for tar files
that reflect their compliance with one version of Swarm or another,
however.  I posted a proposed quasi-standard on this issue some time
ago, and I think I got one response...

 --- Alex

-- 
  Alex Lancaster         |   e-mail: address@hidden
  Swarm Developer        |      web: http://www.santafe.edu/~alex
  Santa Fe Institute     |      tel: +1-(505) 984-8800 (ext 242)
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