MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Eitan Adler]

We have several files intended to serve as a kind of 'readme' or
related. Many of these files have not been updated in some time and
contain incomplete or wrong information.

For example FEATURES was last updated in 2012 for 5.0.0. MACHINES was
last touched in 2015 and is wildly incomplete.

Is there any reason to keep these files around? Should we just remove them?

-- 
Eitan Adler

Re: MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Peter Stephenson]

On Sat, 26 May 2018 23:49:12 -0700
Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> wrote:
> We have several files intended to serve as a kind of 'readme' or
> related. Many of these files have not been updated in some time and
> contain incomplete or wrong information.
> 
> For example FEATURES was last updated in 2012 for 5.0.0. MACHINES was
> last touched in 2015 and is wildly incomplete.

FEATURES is there as a basic introduction to things zsh does well for
people who don't use it yet.  These haven't changed; it is not the NEWS
file.  It even says as much right at the top.  So unless anyone finds
something that is worthy of adding or emending it doesn't need
changing.

MACHINES is never going to be complete, because we're relying on reports
of problems from the field, but it is intended to be accurate and
useful, which it isn't at the moment.  It could probably be truncated to
a note saying it's a placeholder for reports of issues in installation
that need to be worked around --- which do get reported now and then ---
and a request for updates.

pws

Re: MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Peter Stephenson]

On Tue, 29 May 2018 09:34:55 +0100
Peter Stephenson <p.stephenson@samsung.com> wrote:
> MACHINES is never going to be complete, because we're relying on
> reports of problems from the field, but it is intended to be accurate
> and useful, which it isn't at the moment.  It could probably be
> truncated to a note saying it's a placeholder for reports of issues
> in installation that need to be worked around --- which do get
> reported now and then --- and a request for updates.

Here's a possible short version --- I've included the entire file.
It's largely to encourage people to report problems they find
(though usually configuration problems we find out about tend
to get fixed).  I'm assuming the OS-specific information that was there
is too ancient to be of any use.

I deleted a paragraph about upgrading gcc with the OS as it's irrelevant
if gcc comes with the distribution and the days of needing to install
gcc separately are largely numbered.  I also changed the set of machines
I think are "reasonably well covered" nowadays.

pws


-----------------------------
ZSH ON SPECIFIC ARCHITECTURES
-----------------------------

This file is to record difficulties in compiling and installing zsh on
specific architectures.

The information in this list may be out of date, as the developers do
not have access to all machines.  In general, GNU/Linux distributions
and BSD derivatives including MacOS are reasonably well covered.

At the time of writing zsh is believed to comiple on all up-to-date
Unix-like operating systems.  Please let us know of any exceptions.

The intended format of entries is thus:

	Vendor: OS & version (hardware type) [zsh version tried]
		information

Re: MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Vin Shelton]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2032 bytes --]

Thanks, Peter!

I spotted a minor typo: comiple.  Also, I recommend including a date to
give more substance to the phrase: "At the time of writing".

  - Vin

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 9:26 AM, Peter Stephenson <p.stephenson@samsung.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, 29 May 2018 09:34:55 +0100
> Peter Stephenson <p.stephenson@samsung.com> wrote:
> > MACHINES is never going to be complete, because we're relying on
> > reports of problems from the field, but it is intended to be accurate
> > and useful, which it isn't at the moment.  It could probably be
> > truncated to a note saying it's a placeholder for reports of issues
> > in installation that need to be worked around --- which do get
> > reported now and then --- and a request for updates.
>
> Here's a possible short version --- I've included the entire file.
> It's largely to encourage people to report problems they find
> (though usually configuration problems we find out about tend
> to get fixed).  I'm assuming the OS-specific information that was there
> is too ancient to be of any use.
>
> I deleted a paragraph about upgrading gcc with the OS as it's irrelevant
> if gcc comes with the distribution and the days of needing to install
> gcc separately are largely numbered.  I also changed the set of machines
> I think are "reasonably well covered" nowadays.
>
> pws
>
>
> -----------------------------
> ZSH ON SPECIFIC ARCHITECTURES
> -----------------------------
>
> This file is to record difficulties in compiling and installing zsh on
> specific architectures.
>
> The information in this list may be out of date, as the developers do
> not have access to all machines.  In general, GNU/Linux distributions
> and BSD derivatives including MacOS are reasonably well covered.
>
> At the time of writing zsh is believed to comiple on all up-to-date
> Unix-like operating systems.  Please let us know of any exceptions.
>
> The intended format of entries is thus:
>
>         Vendor: OS & version (hardware type) [zsh version tried]
>                 information
>

Re: MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Peter Stephenson]

On Wed, 30 May 2018 09:45:11 -0400
Vin Shelton <acs@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
> I spotted a minor typo: comiple.  Also, I recommend including a date
> to give more substance to the phrase: "At the time of writing".

Thanks for the sanity check --- I've included a version as well as a date.
I search for the previous version globally when updating so the
last release is probably the right thing to put.

pws


-----------------------------
ZSH ON SPECIFIC ARCHITECTURES
-----------------------------

This file is to record difficulties in compiling and installing zsh on
specific architectures.

The information in this list may be out of date, as the developers do
not have access to all machines.  In general, GNU/Linux distributions
and BSD derivatives including MacOS are reasonably well covered.

At the time of writing (2018/05/30, version 5.5.1) zsh is believed to
compile on all up-to-date Unix-like operating systems.  Please let us
know of any exceptions.

The intended format of entries is thus:

	Vendor: OS & version (hardware type) [zsh version tried]
		information

Re: MACHINES, FEATURES, etc.

[Eitan Adler]

On 30 May 2018 at 06:52, Peter Stephenson <p.stephenson@samsung.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 May 2018 09:45:11 -0400
> Vin Shelton <acs@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
>> I spotted a minor typo: comiple.  Also, I recommend including a date
>> to give more substance to the phrase: "At the time of writing".
>
> Thanks for the sanity check --- I've included a version as well as a date.
> I search for the previous version globally when updating so the
> last release is probably the right thing to put.
>
> pws
>
>
> -----------------------------
> ZSH ON SPECIFIC ARCHITECTURES
> -----------------------------
>
> This file is to record difficulties in compiling and installing zsh on
> specific architectures.
>
> The information in this list may be out of date, as the developers do
> not have access to all machines.  In general, GNU/Linux distributions
> and BSD derivatives including MacOS are reasonably well covered.
>
> At the time of writing (2018/05/30, version 5.5.1) zsh is believed to
> compile on all up-to-date Unix-like operating systems.  Please let us
> know of any exceptions.

LGTM.


-- 
Eitan Adler