Tag-based package system

Raydan · 2009-08-20 18:29:51

Hello,

I'd like to share one interesting idea (as I think ) with you. I've googled a little and looks like there is no distr, where this feature was implemented. Correct me, please, if I'm wrong and if this idea was offered earlier. And sorry for my no so good English

I think that tags were really perfect idea and everybody can see how tags work in web, music, video etc. Tag-based file systems is another one step to absolutely convenient life of ordinary user and there some works around it (https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu … filesystem).

I offer you similar (in some way) thing: add tags support to pacman. Look: if I'm a c++ programmer I'm definitely interested in everything connected with c++, i.e. compiler, build system, IDE, source checking utils, indexing system etc. Let's tag then g++, netbeans, scope, kscope with tag c++. I'm sure that everyone reading this post imagined a few more tags for packages that I enumerated: compiler for g++; ide, c, ruby, uml and java for netbeans; c, java, python, perl, php for cscope.

Tags will make searching simple as never: if I need for example GTK image viewer that supports EPS and looks like photoshop, i just run 'pacman -Q --tags "gtk, image viewer, eps, photoshop"' and I will see gimpshop. Of course many of you already know that it is gimpshop, but for newbies (and not only them) tags will greatly help searching.

In PKGBUILD tags will just look like: tags="sex, drugs, r'n'r"

It would be great if somebody tell what he (she) think about it.

Thanks.

--
Best Regards,
Dmitry Vinokurov

Last edited by Raydan (2009-08-20 18:32:19)

fukawi2 · 2009-08-20 22:51:20

File a feature request on the Bug tracker (when it's back online) but I don't think it will get far unless you can provide patches for pacman / makepkg etc

Personally, I could possibly see the benefits, but at the same time... I'm in favour of keeping pacman as simple as possible, repo db files as small as possible and using Google/Freshmeat to find the software I want/need.

sand_man · 2009-08-20 23:09:12

This can work as long as the tags are maintained and follow a rule set. Otherwise you will have multiple tags which are very similar but mean the same thing. I've never really been a fan of the way tags work, particularly with sites like last.fm etc.
But that's my opinion. As fukawi said, submit a feature request on the bug tracker and let the devs decide.

Profjim · 2009-08-21 00:20:12

There was a project to do this on Debian systems, I think it's called debtags. I don't know how far it's gotten, but a few years ago its proponents were expressing doubts whether it would ever gain enough momentum/coverage.

ngoonee · 2009-08-21 00:33:18

Probably a better way to get it to work would be separate from pacman itself, sort of like an external commentary on the existing DB. Easiest as a searchable web-interface first, I'd guess. That way no need to mess with pacman and makepkg. All packages would default to having no tags, and a team would be responsible for adding tags for packages as and when requested by some bug-tracker-type system.

Raydan · 2009-08-21 03:46:21

Hm, maybe you're right and it's better to keep pacman simple and use general base of software with wide searching abilities, like freshmeat (where tags are implemented time ago). I'd think more and decide, in which form it's better to write feature request and whether it worths to write at all.

Peasantoid · 2009-08-21 05:06:41

+1 ngoonee's idea, though I doubt this is going to go anywhere.

ngoonee · 2009-08-21 07:12:18

Peasantoid wrote:

+1 ngoonee's idea, though I doubt this is going to go anywhere.

+1

shining · 2009-08-21 09:47:57

this has been discussed to death already
we already have on old bug report, with many comments : http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/7132

a part of the last comment was :

Allan wrote:

Dusty said: Every piece of meta-data on a PKGBUILD makes it that much more work to maintain.
True, what portion of packages actually have a changelog?

So even if pacman had this feature, it would take ages to define meaningful and consistent tags on all packages.
ngoonee's idea is not bad, as it would allow to have this effort community-driven rather than developer-driven.

Allan wrote:

The question should be: is there a want/need for this in package management with pacman? Whether or not Arch makes use of such a feature is beside the point.
So I say someone should implement this if they really want to...

actually a patch was written, by Ronald van Haren aka pressh, but this patch introduced a lot of duplication between group and tags code, as these two are quite similar.
and anyway, if Arch is not going to make use of that feature, or use it poorly, because adding and maintaining tags is too much work, there is not a real need to bother implementing this feature properly.

but again ngoonee's proposal of implementing this outside of pacman solves that problem too.

So to sum up, if you want tags, just do it

Last edited by shining (2009-08-21 09:48:38)

Peasantoid · 2009-08-21 20:06:31

[never mind]

Last edited by Peasantoid (2009-08-21 20:07:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-20 18:29:51

Tag-based package system

#2 2009-08-20 22:51:20

Re: Tag-based package system

#3 2009-08-20 23:09:12

Re: Tag-based package system

#4 2009-08-21 00:20:12

Re: Tag-based package system

#5 2009-08-21 00:33:18

Re: Tag-based package system

#6 2009-08-21 03:46:21

Re: Tag-based package system

#7 2009-08-21 05:06:41

Re: Tag-based package system

#8 2009-08-21 07:12:18

Re: Tag-based package system

#9 2009-08-21 09:47:57

Re: Tag-based package system

#10 2009-08-21 20:06:31

Re: Tag-based package system

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