Re: Slightly OT: Debian Community Poll

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:56:51 -0700 (PDT), Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote on comp.lang.ada:
>>>> The things missing in the stable package of GtkSourceView are at least one
>>>> year old. I am wondering why this key GTK package is so poorly packaged.
>>
>>> It is not a key GTK+ package (few other packages depend on it) and it
>>> is not poorly packaged.
>>
>> If you build a GUI, an ability to render and edit texts is not always, but
>> often, essential. Now I am not certain if other GTK parts are actual. There
>> might be issues, e.g. older GTK versions had nasty problems with drop down
>> windows.
> 
> That is correct but most applications that need to display text use
> widgets other than GtkSourceView,

They might implement their own. I suppose that GPS does this. But it has
very complex ones. For an average end user GtkSourceView is the best
available solution in terms of functionality/implementation expenses.

> like e.g. GtkTextView or simply
> GtkLabel. GtkSourceView is, in fact, quite heavy and specialized.

GtkSourceView is built on top of GtkTextView in order to replaces it.
GtkTextView is barely usable as a text renderer/editor. As for being
heavy-weight, this argument makes little sense because text buffer and text
view load the whole file. So it is heavy from the start per design.
GtkSourceView maybe worsen that (due to use of regex patterns), but who
cares in these days and under UNIX!?

>>> If you want recent packages, you should use testing (like I do) or unstable.
>>
>> I will. Even GNAT GPL has shorter cycles. There should be a reason...
> 
> The reason for the 1-year release cycle of GNAT GPL is that it also
> serves for the GNAT Academic Program, so its release cycle matches
> that of university curricula, i.e. 1 year.

I don't believe that is the reason. (Even if AdaCore would say so. (:-)) 

> The reason for the longer life cycle of Debian is to match the
> expectations of conservative server administrators. They buy a new
> server and install Debian N on it and do not want any changes in the
> software except, reluctantly, for security bugs. 3 or 4 years later
> they buy a new server, install Debian N+1 on it, migrate their data
> and scrap the old server.

That answers my question! Outdated packages is Debian policy.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de