Package: lp-solve Version: 5.5-2 Severity: important Hi,
I've recently installed both lp-solve and liblpsolve55-dev, in the hope that I can use them in some mathematics work that I am doing. Unfortunately I can find no documentation at all in either of these packages that shows me how to use them. For lp-solve, all there is is a README.txt.gz that discusses features but no actual instructions on how to use the program lp_solve. There is no manpage either. The best I could get was the output from "lp_solve --help", which gives a flood of command-line options but still leaves out critical information such as what needs to go in the input file. For liblpsolve55-dev, the only documentation seems to be a single example file (demo.c). Whilst this gives hints at how to use the library, it still basically leaves the programmer guessing at the finer details, which from a programming point of view is somewhat dangerous (are there any constraints? preconditions? limitations?). The headers themselves contain almost no information of this sort either. In my opinion, software of this nature desperately needs some form of information for both the casual user (lp-solve) and the programmer (liblpsolve55-dev). Otherwise you are more or less left guessing; even if you do manage to fumble your way around and get some results, you cannot rely on them because you don't know whether you've used the program/library correctly or not. (It is for this reason that I've filed this bug as important: "a bug which has a major effect on the usability of a package, without rendering it completely unusable to everyone".) I presume there is documentation available -- the lp-solve README.txt.gz refers to "full source, examples and manuals", asks the reader to "See the reference guide for more information", and in fact speaks of the documentation more precisely: "The html files are also in lp_solve_5.5_doc.tar.gz. Start with index.htm ... Also see http://lpsolve.sourceforge.net/ for a on-line documentation". For online users, this is inconvenient (having to locate and download the docs separately); for offline users this is impossible. My suggestion here would be to bundle up this documentation and either include it with lp-solve or as a separate lp-solve-doc package, and if you use a separate package then make a note in README.Debian for both the lp-solve and liblpsolve55-dev packages so users know where to find it. I would also suggest restoring the lp_solve.1 manpage; looking at the debian changelogs, it seems there was a manpage some time in the past; it would be useful if this could be included again (and presumably updated where appropriate). Anyway, that's all from me. It does look like a useful package; it's just unfortunate that (unlike your typical GUI tool or self-documenting proglet) it's more or less impossible for the average user to guess their way through the system based on what debian is currently shipping. Many thanks, Ben. -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-2-686 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Versions of packages lp-solve depends on: ii libc6 2.3.6-15 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libufsparse 1.2-6 collection of libraries for comput lp-solve recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
