Introducing: Debian Science tools

[Andreas Tille]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, Manuel Prinz wrote:

> I just setup a Git repository in our group namespace named
> "debian-science-tools". It's supposed to be a collection of tools that
> will aid when working on Debian Science, and everyone is very welcome to
> contribute to it. It's both for users and developers, enabling users to
> contribute more easily to Debian Science -- if they like to do so.

Manuel, many thanks for this effort which is really welcome.  But
IMHO this rather belongs to general Debian Pure Blends (formerly
known as Custom Debian Distribution) stuff and should rather go
to the cdd repository.  I is a known fact that every project develops
nice tools and my goal is to find synergies to make these available
for everybody.  This does not mean that I want to stop you from
continuing the good work but please use a variable for debian-science
at every piece of your code and try to use configuration files to
enable a generalisation easily.

> At the moment, it just contains one tool, debsci-wnpp, which calls
> "reportbug wnpp" and also adds templates for user-tagging and CC'ing the
> maintainers list. Using this, it is possible to directly set usertags in
> the template, so this does not have to be done manually after an ITP.
> Also, the mailing list is always informed about new ITPs/RFPs.

I currently have no time to look into this code (regard me on pseudo-vacation)
but I would strongly vote to call this script

      blend-wnpp science

The science argument should make the script reading a configuration
file /etc/blend/science/science.conf which should contain all the
information you need and will be installed by the science-common
package.  This is only some rough scetch what I plan for the future
but this should give you an idea how to design those scripts.  I
also would like you to continue this discussion at debian-custom
list which is

> There is also a small wrapper script, debsci, that simply calls the
> debsci-* scipts. It's just for convenience, to feel a little more like
> Git. (Which I like. You may or may not use it, all tools can be called
> directly.)

Same here: Please consider

     blend science

or something like this.

> More tools are planned, one is going to be rewritten. I did not announce
> it to debian-science@ yet since the use is still quite limited.

I would really feel debian-science@ list apropriate ...

Full quote of the remaining stuff to inform debian-custom.

Thanks for your effort

       Andreas.

> If you have other ideas, feel free to commit to the "upstream" branch or
> send me a patch. The scripts still lack proper documentation but are so
> simple and short that it should be no problem to understand what they
> do.
>
> A preliminary packaging can be found in the "debian" branch. I'm also
> unsure about the license, I just chose GPLv3+. I do not mind to change
> that if one has strong feelings about that.
>
> All feedback and contributions are welcome. Please let me know if you
> like the idea and/or find the tools useful.
>
> Best regards
> Manuel
>

-- 
http://fam-tille.de