Maintainers of scientific applications: Please maintain tasks files! (Was: Bug#592701: science-statistics: typo in package description)

Fri Aug 13 09:40:16 UTC 2010

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 08:52:46AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:09:49AM +0200, Christian T. Steigies wrote:
> > 
> > I hope you don't kill me either... I have not yet played with tags and
> > tasks, and did not see any links to relevant documentation in your email.
> 
> I just had the impression that I have given way to many hints to the
> relevant Blends doc[1] that people become bored about this.  Obviosely
> this is not the case and there is in fact no real need if you read this
> all.  However, your e-mail is in principle sufficient to fullfill my
> cry for help (probably pronounced a bit to engaged yesterday - sorry
> if I sounded to harsh).

That is a lot to read...

> > I maintain GLE,
> 
> I have added it to the viewing task in SVN[2] - so this was basically
> the information I needed from you as a maintainer of a package with
> relevance for scientific work.  You probably could have added the
> 
>    Depends: gle-graphics
> 
> yourself ... but if nobody has pointed you to the docs it is idefinitely
> not your fault (and I'll keep on bothering you all with this stuff ;-)).

Ok, thanks. I guess I should update the description sometimes... that comes
directly from the control file? I see there is no website mentioned, does
this also come from the control file?
http://glx.sourceforge.net/

> > which is still in pkg-scicomp and I guess it should be moved
> > to debian-science (this has been suggested before for this or some other
> > package I (co)maintain. Sombody offered to do it).
> 
> The merge of the two science projects will definitely not come because
> Sylvestre has suggested it.  His offer to do the move is really brave -
> but I guess he needs at least some kind of confirmation "Yes, I'm fine
> if you just do it."  You probably have observed cases in the past where
> a maintainer was defeating others from touching his packages.

Oh, but this package is MINE... ;-)
No, I am fine with it, but I just know enough svn to check in my changes. I
did not get svn-buildpackage to work (thats one of the reasons I prefer bzr)
and I do not want to experiment to move the svn directory from pkg-scicomp
to pkg-science. I just want to use the version control, not write a thesis
about it.

> > http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gle-graphics.html
> > 
> > This package fits into the viewing task, as it is similar to gnuplot, grace,
> > gri, only better (since I have been using it for 15+ years ;-)
> > 
> > How do I add it to the task?
> 
> As I said I've just done it and I'm volunteering to add other packages
> after a notice because it is quite simple and does not really need much
> time.  I just started the job to render the Debian Science tasks
> manually in addition to the cron job to let you all see the effect of
> this change and thus you should find your package at the science viewing
> task page[3] in a short time.

Yes, I have seen it there, thanks. Just as I said, it is better than
gnuplot, it comes before ;-)

> > I just found this page:
> > http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/edit.html?pkg=gle-graphics
> > Should I add the use::viewing tag? What does this button... hmm
> 
> Adding DebTags to your packages is also a very good idea.  The tasks
> pages support this by providing a link in case a package is not yet
> DebTagged.  You can read more about DebTags here[4] and you can
> effectively use the DebTags database by using axi-cache (the successor
> of ept-cache), a nifty tool which is some kind of so perfectly hidden
> that no user does it know (as well as the Blends stuff obviosely).

I thought the tag would add it to the tasks, why does it have to be done
twice?

> > Anything else?
> 
> Once you are navigating to the gle-graphics section on[3] you will
> notice that in contrast to other packages gle-graphics has no
> screenshot.  Just follow the according link and add a screenshot.
> Blends is also about Quality Assurance.  I really hope this stuff
> makes sense to you (and you will spreed the word ;-)!)

I will have a look. There are many screenshots in the glx examples page, I
don't know which to pick... can I upload two?

> > And how will the package move from pkg-scicomp to science? I wouldn't mind
> > switching to bzr during this move...
> 
> I guess this was explained before but I think the Draft Debian Science
> Policy[5] will answer this question.  In short:
> 
>   Maintainer: Debian Science Team <debian-science-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org>
>   Uploaders: <you>[, <other maintainer>]
> 
>   Vcs-Git: git://git.debian.org/?p=debian-science/gle-graphics.git   OR
>   Vcs-Svn: svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-science/packages/gle-graphics/trunk/
> 
> (Git or SVN at your preference, no bzr).  Subscribing to the maintainers
> list (prehaps the commit list) as well as to the discussion list[6]
> makes sense.  That's all.

And even more to read... I think the package that was suggested for the move
is xmds.
http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/xmds.html
That should probably be added to the tasks as well, but I am not quite sure
where. It solves differential equations, so probably math. There are many
examples for physics, engineering, chemistry. So it could be in those tasks
as well?

Christian