[Mailman-Developers] Betas coming soon

Juergen A. Erhard jae@ilk.de
Thu, 23 Mar 2000 01:58:51 +0100


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>>>>> "BAW" =3D=3D Barry A Warsaw <bwarsaw@cnri.reston.va.us> writes:

[...]

    BAW> 1) I've thought about being really parental about the upgrade, by
    BAW>    essentially forcing people to read the UPGRADING file before "m=
ake"
    BAW>    will succeed.  I think I have a trick that will work, but I'm n=
ot
    BAW>    sure it's a good idea.  On the one hand it /might/ (only might)=

    BAW>    save lazy or novice upgraders some headaches by forcing them to=

    BAW>    read the manual first.

    BAW>    One the other hand, it'll be really annoying either to those wh=
o
    BAW>    are doing a fresh install, or who are upgrading but know what
    BAW>    they're doing.  So, do you think it would be a good idea to for=
ce
    BAW>    everyone to read UPGRADING before "make" succeeds?

I don't think it's worth the bother... for one, you can't *really*
ensure everybody has read it[1].  And even if you can, you can't
really make them *follow* it ;-)

*Might* is the word to watch here... it *might* save some folks some
trouble.  But it *will* annoy many others.

So, I'd not do this... I generally don't like mothering software
packages ("Are you *really* sure you want to quit?"-like
stuff... mostly seen on Windoze, but quite a number of GNOME apps seem
to have been infected with this virus (I'd guess KDE is similar, but I
can't say)).

Bye, J

[1] To closest way I can think of[2]: put it on screen, make the user
scroll through it, but at a max speed of 1 line per second (which
still might be to quick ;-) and make this process *completely*
unstoppable.  Oh, and keep the user from editing out this part of the
Makefile ;-))

[2] And I shudder to think ;-)

PS: Of course, I expect the .deb (and .rpm) packagers to show a
warning upon or prior to upgrade...

- -- =

J=FCrgen A. Erhard      eMail: jae@ilk.de      phone: (GERMANY) 0721 27326
          My WebHome: http://members.tripod.com/Juergen_Erhard
                    "Ever wonder why the SAME PEOPLE
      make up ALL the conspiracy theories?" -- Michael K. Johnson
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