Re: MacPorts 1.5.0 and binary packaging / New improved Guide
On Jul 10, 2007, at 07:41, Anders F Björklund wrote:
markd wrote:
http://homepage.mac.com/duling/macports/guide.html
Comments still welcome on the Guide so far. It needs some color css work and other css formatting, but I'm focusing on content and readability.
There are some common typos in it like "OS X" (Mac OS X) and "Xwindows" (X Window System) and it should probably be less Apple/Mac OS X centric (i.e. should mention explicitly that 2.1-2.5 applies to Mac OS X, and say something instead of "Apple-supplied" - like vendor-supplied, etc etc...)
[snip] I would counter that being Apple- and Mac-centric is a good thing. The project name was deliberately changed from DarwinPorts to MacPorts to emphasize the fact that it's designed for Mac users. MacPorts has so far not been so easy for the typical non-UNIX-geek Mac user to understand, so I would consider being Mac-specific in the documentation to be a good thing. I'm not sure if anything non-Mac- centric needs to be said in the documentation, other than at most a sentence in the introduction stating that the project is designed for Macs, that it may work on other OSes, but that this is not guaranteed. I haven't actually looked at the guide yet, but wanted to make the above comments anyway.
Ryan Schmidt wrote:
I would counter that being Apple- and Mac-centric is a good thing. The project name was deliberately changed from DarwinPorts to MacPorts to emphasize the fact that it's designed for Mac users. MacPorts has so far not been so easy for the typical non-UNIX-geek Mac user to understand, so I would consider being Mac-specific in the documentation to be a good thing. I'm not sure if anything non-Mac-centric needs to be said in the documentation, other than at most a sentence in the introduction stating that the project is designed for Macs, that it may work on other OSes, but that this is not guaranteed.
There is a difference between not actively supporting use on other platforms, and actively discouraging using the product on other platforms (whether by code or by words)... Don't get me wrong here, I don't think there is anything wrong whatsoever with using Apple and Mac terms to describe how you install MacPorts on Apple Mac OS X. But everywhere? Nah.
I haven't actually looked at the guide yet, but wanted to make the above comments anyway.
Please do then, we're talking about something minor like changing "Installing MacPorts" to "Installing MacPorts on Mac OS X" and avoiding limiting the entire system to just the Apple Macs. Don't see how "Mac OS X and other platforms" or "Apple or other vendors" would hurt anything. Unless the project clearly defines that it will remove all old code for Darwin and for FreeBSD. --anders
Anders F Björklund <afb@macports.org> on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 2:32 PM -0800 wrote:
Don't get me wrong here, I don't think there is anything wrong whatsoever with using Apple and Mac terms to describe how you install MacPorts on Apple Mac OS X. But everywhere? Nah.
we're talking about something minor like changing "Installing MacPorts" to "Installing MacPorts on Mac OS X" and avoiding limiting the entire system to just the Apple Macs.
Don't see how "Mac OS X and other platforms" or "Apple or other vendors" would hurt anything. Unless the project clearly defines that it will remove all old code for Darwin and for FreeBSD.
I think that writing the guide so it is has enough generality to accomodate other operating systems is a good idea; it just wasn't one of the major things in my mind since my main goal to start with was/is conceptual clarity of the overall system. For the OS question, I woulld like to use this approach: 1) Make the guide as platform agnostic as possible without confusing OS X users. 2) Mention what alternative OSs are likely to work in the introduction. 3) If alternative OS instructions are desired or needed, put them in a doc "sandbox" (separate guide section, or MP wiki, etc). If we stick to that philosophy I think it would minimize how much we need to revisit the "do these guide mods/additions make sense for OS X and BSD" questions as time goes on. And leave the question of what alternative OSs we support to the people writing and contributing to the code over time. Thoughts are welcome. Mark
participants (3)
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Anders F Björklund
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markd＠macports.org
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Ryan Schmidt