Martin,
On Sunday, 2020-05-03 15:55:59 -0000, you wrote:
> ...
> > I STRONGLY beg to disagree! The "~amd64" notation is used to ACCEPT a
> > package even though it is (still) classified as UNSTABLE.
>
> This is package-manager terminology which has much less states since
> a package manager needs no fine distinctions about the reasons of
> accepting or rejecting a package and which of these reasons are caused
> by your local configuration.
No it's USER terminology. It's what users are confronted with when they
set-up their Portage configuration and when they deal with commands like
"emerge", "equery", and ilk. In your mail dating 2020-04-24 17:32:09
-0000 even you said "Maybe you run an unstable system, that is ACCEPT_
KEYWORDS='~amd64'?" because you knew that on an "unstable" system (user
terminology) property "{isstable}" ("eix" developers' terminology) will
always return True.
But if I learned anything about software development in my former life,
it's that everything a user or administrator passes as option or argum-
ent to some command or inserts into some configuration file has to be
described in the manuals using USER terminology.
Brilliant programmers may write brilliant software, but if they write
sloppy documentation or use counterintuitive terminology therein, only a
few stubborn people will use this software in a few special cases they
have struggled to understand, and all the brilliance goes mainly unnot-
iced and is thus more or less wasted. No software can be better than
its documentation!
> ...
> There would be a severe information problem if there were just a
> few such states and the natural term "unstable" with the analogous
> "alienunstable" would have been reserved for a mere negation.
It's not a matter of the number of states but a matter of choosing in-
tuitive names for them. Simply due to USER EXPECTATION the term "un-
stable" HAS to be the opposite of "isstable" (and thus is unnecessary
because there is also "!isstable"). And if finer granularity is needed,
more (but carefully chosen) property names have to be introduced. But
if every state introduced isn't clearly and precisely defined in some
manual, it's not too surprising that only few people manage to use the
software.
Sincerely,
Rainer
