From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <36e9307daa1b7ee8b9f5453b394c01ed@cat-v.org>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] complaints about new web site
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 19:41:37 +0100
From: uriel@cat-v.org
In-Reply-To: <20060128141832.88F171E8C29@holo.morphisms.net>
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>> 1.) We create two places to look for software (sources and web)
>> 
>> 2.) It may be stuff _new_ people commonly want - I don't want GCC on
>> Plan 9.  And those people probably don't really want GCC either.
> 
> No one really wants gcc.  But TeX was the original "additional software"
> and it remains useful and worth being easy to find.  So is Python.
I agree that there are various important packages that should be
listed in a convenient place, I'm working in a new version of the
'Software for Plan 9' wiki page that will(I hope) replace the
"Additional software" page.  First step is to get everyone with
various code bits in random pages over the net to move them to sources
so I can delete the external links.


> Everything on the additional software page is links to sources,
> so there's really only one place to find the archives.  There's also
> only one real place to look for software, and that's the web page,
> unless you like reading large unsorted lists of software packages.
> (What Uriel has built is not an index.  It is a table of contents.
> A real index would actually help a lot.)
The "Contrib Index"[1] is far from perfect, but I think it's still
quite useful.  Any ideas about how to improve it without involving too
much manual work which would ensure its fast obsolescence?


Allowing to tag packages with some kind of category might be good,
probably by having a list of common directory names(eg., 'scripts',
'ports', 'games, 'drivers', etc.,), only problem is to get everyone
with sources accounts to take the time and care to organize their
packages according to those conventions.

Thanks

uriel

[1] Thanks to everyone that moved their code to sources
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Contrib_index/