Text 6132, 73 rader
Skriven 2006-05-27 01:30:10 av Maurice Kinal (1:140/13.1)
   Kommentar till text 6131 av Paul Rogers (1:105/360.0)
Ärende: Guarded Inst'n Tool
===========================
Hey Paul!

May 26 17:35 06, Paul Rogers wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 PR> I'm not sure what you mean.

For instance if a script requires 'cat' it potentially it could see if 'cat'
exists.  Bad example given that if no 'cat' on a normal linux system something
is amiss but perhaps with certain calls it might be a nice feature.  I find
'which' to be handy every now and then.

 PR> It can run ldd on installed
 PR> packages.

That is a good idea ... I think.  I use it quite often on the commandline.

 PR> It will warn you if you try to remove a package that
 PR> is a dependency for packages it thinks are still installed.  Git
 PR> is an assistant, not a dictator.

Another good idea.

 PR> It will still track which files belong to which packages, and
 PR> allow you to remove all the files a package created during
 PR> installation.

Sounds good.

 PR> It doesn't know about files added since, and
 PR> there may be "not empty" errors when it tries to remove a
 PR> directory.

As long as it tells me when that is so then I'd personally prefer it that way.

 PR> Of course, it helps edit the removal scripts, and
 PR> you can add entries if you wish.

Sounds good.

 PR> I think I generally prefer docs that explain "best practices"
 PR> when it comes to management issues.

That is good too but I always find a 'whatever-executable --help' (or even just
-h) to be the most handy and well used feature on a day to day basis.  For
scripts I think it is probably all that is needed for online documentation but
not as a replacement for a good reference book on systems administration or
simular concepts.  I find self written scripts with comments about what I think
I am trying to accomplish with the script in question to be the handiest way to
keep myself up to date, although sometimes I get extremely lazy about it.  I
can't see myslef writing seperate documentation for whatever since for the
mostpart my scripts tend to be compact and usually as a glue for a bunch of
apps whose output is either piped or redirected to another app or file.  These
thing also tend to change over a short period of time so any external
documentation would more then likely be out of date rather quickly.

 PR> For example, most systems
 PR> have tar, cron, find, etc., but how many users would be able to
 PR> make a usable & reliable system backup process just from the man
 PR> pages?

That would be difficult.

 PR> LDP does a lot of documentation on issues like this.

Right.  Some of it is really dated and/or centric to a particular distro's
and/or application's release but for sure most, if not all, of it is worth a
read.

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.2.0
 * Origin: The Pointy Stick Society XIX - Simplify man! (1:140/13.1)