pll@lanminds.com writes:
> >Mmm, not so sure about that. We already have autogen.sh checking for
> >these, and INSTALL documenting them... and INSTALL is the right place,
> >because these dependencies are needed to, well, install Subversion
> >:-). Let's leave them there.
>
> What about a location closer to the top of the INSTALL file which
> simply does what I wanted the DEPENDENCIES file for.
>
> My goal is to make it quick and painless to find out what revs of
> what external dependencies are required, and where to get them, as
> well as painless to maintain the this list.
>
> As it is now, even though they are listed in INSTALL, you have to
> scroll through a good portion of the file just to find out what you
> need to install in order to build Subversion.
That's because one might not need/want to build the server. Of
course, someone rolling a dist always needs those dependencies, but in
the long run most users just need to build a client (so they don't
need, for example, Berkeley DB). Plus, people bootstrapping from a
tarball don't need to fetch any dependencies, so listing deps
prominently in INSTALL would be just so much noise for those
people... Or worse, they'll see the list and waste time fetching all
that stuff, only to discover they didn't need it.
Paul, I think you're trying to tune the docs so they're optimized for
release management. Please don't do that :-). Instead, tune the
release manager to work with information whose presentation was
designed for non release managers.
The INSTALL file is very easy to complain about, but not so easy to
improve. Writing documentation is hard. I actually think the INSTALL
file does a pretty good job of covering a complex subject. It's like
complaining to the IRS that the tax forms are confusing -- they're
pretty well-designed, actually, it's the tax *law* that's inherently
confusing, but changing that is a much bigger task.
-K
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Received on Wed Jul 16 03:30:59 2003