[Pkg-javascript-devel] Bug#963112: node-katex_0.10.2+dfsg-2_amd64.changes REJECTED

[Pirate Praveen]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 18:24, Simon McVittie <smcv at debian.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 at 13:11:48 +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:
>>  It is over two weeks since I added debian/README.Debian, some 
>> feedback on it
>>  (if it is sufficient or if you need more time to discuss it inside 
>> team)
>>  would be good.
> 
> (Not an ftp team member, etc.)
> 
> Following up on this: I think part of the issue here might be the 
> katex
> package's Description and other metadata fields. From the version 
> visible
> in the NEW queue:
> 
>     Package: katex
>     Provides: node-katex (= 0.10.2+dfsg-3)
>     Section: javascript
>     Description: Fast math typesetting for the web
>      KaTeX is a fast, easy-to-use JavaScript library for TeX math 
> rendering on the
>      web.
>      .
>      KaTeX supports all major browsers, including Chrome, Safari, 
> Firefox, Opera,
>      Edge, and IE 9 - IE 11.
>      .
>      Node.js is an event-based server-side JavaScript engine.
> 
> To me, that doesn't look like a user-facing executable; it looks like
> a JavaScript library, that happens to have an executable entry point
> so unimportant that the package description doesn't even mention it.
> The package's contents also seem to be 90% usr/share/nodejs/katex, 
> which
> supports that point of view.
> 
> When I talked about user-facing executable programs like tappy, 
> flatpak,
> kmod, libglib2.0-bin in the technical committee advice, what I had in 
> mind
> was something more like this:
> 
>     Package: katex
>     Section: tex              (or math or web or something)
>     Depends: nodejs           (etc.)
>     Description: Utility to convert mathematical expressions from TeX 
> to HTML
>      KaTeX is a fast, easy-to-use JavaScript library for TeX math 
> rendering on the
>      web.
>      .
>      This package contains a command-line utility to render 
> mathematical
>      expressions written in TeX into HTML.
> 
> (Or whatever it actually does - I might have misunderstood.)
> 

Does this change look good to you?

https://salsa.debian.org/js-team/node-katex/-/commit/9e05ec38f30f1e195001b181c97c1b1cc56c0146

> Do you see the difference in emphasis between that, and what you've 
> done
> in the version in NEW? It's a utility that does something hopefully
> useful, which you can describe in functional terms that are unrelated
> to its implementation language.
> 
> Relatedly, if usr/share/nodejs/katex (perhaps excluding cli.js) and 
> the
> "Provides: node-katex" moved into libjs-katex, would that give 
> libjs-katex
> any undesirable dependencies? That would leave the katex.deb package
> containing only /usr/bin/katex, which would make its purpose extremely
> clear. It would still be tiny, and the Packages file wouldn't get any
> smaller, but the dividing line between binary packages would be in a 
> place
> that's easier to justify.
> 

I think that is splitting the hairs, but if that is the only way to 
move forward I can do that as well.

> The remaining question for the maintainer and the ftp team would be:
> is the /usr/bin/katex utility sufficiently general-purpose and useful
> that people would genuinely want to install a package that contains 
> only
> that utility? If they would, then I think a package as described above
> makes sense. However, if it's more like an example, demo, manual test
> or toy than something people would genuinely use, an alternative would
> be to install it in /usr/share/doc/libjs-katex/examples, which doesn't
> require a Depends on its interpreter.
> 
> If /usr/bin/katex is a useful tool in its own right and not just an
> example, one thing that would provide good supporting evidence would 
> be
> to write a man page for it, describing how to use it in terms that 
> make
> sense for someone who wants to batch-convert TeX into HTML using a 
> CLI,
> and does not want to have to be aware of anything specific to node.js.
> 

It can convert TeX to html from command line, so it is not just an 
example.

This is upstream documentation of using the cli,

https://katex.org/docs/cli.html

In our case, instead of npx katex, just running katex will be enough. 
But I need to figure out how to convert docs/cli.md.template to a 
manpage. If it was just a regular .md file I can just patch it (to 
remove reference to Node.js package managers and change npx katex to 
katex) and call marked-man I can't find it from package.json scripts 
how the template is converted to a regular .md file. Anyone has ideas 
here? Or I will have to ask upstream.

> I hope that makes sense?
> 

yes, but ftp team has just remained silent after I responded to all the 
suggestions from Sean.

>     smcv
> 
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