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Date:      Fri, 15 Feb 2002 07:16:32 +0000
From:      Dima Dorfman <dima@trit.org>
To:        Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org>
Cc:        doc@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: <port> replacement 
Message-ID:  <20020215071637.584AD3E2F@bazooka.trit.org>
In-Reply-To: <20020213230809.I92878@canyon.nothing-going-on.org>; from nik@freebsd.org on "Wed, 13 Feb 2002 23:08:09 %2B0000"

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[ I'll try not to repeat what others have already said. ]

Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:05:49AM +0000, Dima Dorfman wrote:
> > I propose to replace the <port> tag with <filename> and a "role"
> > attribute as follows:
> >
> > 	<filename role="package">
> 
> 1.  Definitely 'package', not 'port'.  Ports are just the infrastructure
>     that produce packages.

Indeed; my change from "port" to "package" was deliberate.  People
have already given reasons for and against this, but my main
motivation (which has only been mentioned in an off-hand manner) was
that "port" is ambiguous; I can think of at least three different ways
it can be interpreted in this context (TCP/UDP type ports, i386/alpha
type ports, and cvsup/procmail type ports).  Given that, as you [Nik]
point out, FreeBSD is the only place where the definition we want is
used, it probably isn't a good idea.  If people are concerned with
length (I haven't seen this brought up), we can use "pkg", but SGML
isn't exactly known for being pithy.

> 2.  I have a nagging feeling that we should make sure the package's
>     category is included somewhere that DSSSL/XSLT stylesheets can
>     access it.
> 
>         <filename role="package">net/cvsup</filename>
> 
>     is less easy to parse (in a stylesheet) than something like
> 
>         <filename role="package" category="net">cvsup</filename>

I don't really see how the category would be useful without the port
name.  Actually, the "net/" part of "net/cvsup" isn't exactly the
category; it's the directory in which the port resides.  net/cvsup is
in `net' and `devel', but only `net/cvsup' would work in this case.
Either way, I don't see how we could use the category.

I guess I'm not really objecting to this, but rather I'm not sure it's
worth the trouble.  I can't see how it would help, and it adds more
verbosity (as if there wasn't enough (I know SGML is verbose by
nature, but I don't have to like it)).  If [most] people disagree with
me, I'll do the (trivial) work to make it happen.

The second construct above is also ugly in that it adds a
`role'-sensitive `category' attribute.  It isn't really invalid, but
it certainly isn't elegant.

>     We can always make these entities, something like
> 
>         &pkg.net.cvsup;

I don't really have anything to add on this point except to point out
that if we eventually decide to do this people will want to replace
all occurances of '<filename role="package">' with entities at once,
I'd rather only have to do one mass-commit (i.e., get it done right
the first time).  If, on the other hand, people would be content with
having some documents (or parts of documents) use entities while
others use <filename role=...> directly, I'd rather get everything
converted to the latter for now and leave this discussion (and
decision) for later.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

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