[Gnu-arch-users] Re: newbies should neither be seen nor heard

[Miles Bader]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:
>> I did search the list archive first and I know there's been some
>> previous discussion about some of the file and directory names such as
>> '{arch}'.
>
> See:  http://wiki.gnuarch.org/moin.cgi/FunkyFileNames

BTW, I'll quote the initial paragraph from that page (in the wiki it's
followed by more detailed discussion of individual cases):

   One of the things that new arch users feel most uncomfortable with is
   some of the naming conventions that arch uses. These feelings are
   both reasonable and natural. Though these feelings are reasonable,
   take our word for it -- they are just feelings. If you work with
   these files for a couple of months, not only will you get used to
   them, but you will actually end up liking them. Trust us.

This is spot-on as far as I'm concerned.

Back before I used arch, had only taken a perfunctory look at it, and
didn't really understand how it worked (I was tending towards Subversion!),
the "funny filenames" issue was one my big beefs; "Who needs all this crap,
why does Tom force his weird idiosyncrasies on users?!?" was roughly how I
thought of it.

It only took a short while of regular usage (and some mailing list
discussion) before I did a complete 180 and saw that these filename
conventions are actually a very good thing, and that their advantages far
outweigh the few minor inconveniences that crop up (e.g., "more +foo").

BTW, does anyone remember who wrote the Wiki paragraph I quoted above (it
predates the page's wiki history)?  It's very nicely written.

-Miles
-- 
Suburbia: where they tear out the trees and then name streets after them.