Re: misc/39121

["Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/39121; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: misc/39121
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:27:24 +0400

 On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 14:20:06 -0700, Mike Cheponis wrote:
 
 > I don't see how a single person can dictatorially decide what is
 > good form?
 
 I don't think it's useful to track discussion about aesthetic
 preferences, use patterns and working styles in a PR.  You can raise
 this question on a mailing list and if some consensus can be reached
 (which I doubt, btw) - the change can be made.  Meanwhile *an open PR*
 about that just gets in the way - that's why I closed the PR.  I don't
 want people who do bug sweeps, hunting for low hanging fruits and
 doing general gnats houskeeping to waste their time on it.
 
 By that I didn't dictatorially decided what is a good form.  If I had
 committed some completely different table instead of the one we have
 now - that would have been a dictatorial decision.
 
 My point is, if every aesthetic preference is registered in gnats as
 a PR, gnats database will become unmanageable.
 
 
 > On Sat, 19 Jul 2008, Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:
 > 
 > >That's the point, I don't want to use pager every time I want to get
 > >from A to Z.  Again, with the current layout I can "focus" the table I
 > >want on the screen (using pager once) and don't have to touch that
 > >window afterwards.
 > 
 > You are also not being truthful when you say you can "focus" on the
 > table you want
 
 Uhm, let me try to explain myself one more time.  I do man ascii, and
 search for "the dec" or "the hex" and I'm all set - after that the
 table I need is "focused" on the screen, I can use that table without
 any additional paging.  If I need to lookup A or Z or anything else,
 it's all there on a single screen.  That's how I've been using man
 ascii for decades.  I honestly don't understand what you call "not
 truthful" about this.
 
 
 > and THAT is because you have to page through the stuff you DON'T
 > want.
 
 With proposed change you just cannot see all the table at once, to get
 from A to Z you need to page down, and then you need to page up to get
 back to A, you constantly need to page to access parts of the table
 that keep scrolling off the screen.
 
 Are you saying that *constantly* paging through the stuff you want is
 better than to page *once* through the stuff you don't want?
 
 
 > >> For those of you old enough to remember, this is the same format as
 > >> printed on the DEC pdp-11 Programming Card (mine is dated October
 > >> 1974).
 > 
 > Incidentally, Valeriy, are you old enough to remember the 1974
 > pdp-11 Programming Card?
 
 They didn't import those into soviet union, but yes, my first unix
 machine was pdp11 with a soviet "clone" of 2.9BSD.  Admittedly I have
 an unfair advantage of time lag that ussr had wrt the west, so I don't
 have to be as old to be a pdp11 user as someone from the west.
 
 
 > >This discussion is not going anywhere, I'm going to close this bug as
 > >invalid.  If someone doesn't like a manual page that comes with the
 > >system there's always an option to installing the one you like in
 > >/usr/local and adjusting your man path.  There's enough rope.
 > 
 > I'm going to take this up with NetBSD Core, as I think you have been 
 > entirely unreasonable here.
 
 If you object to my behavior, The NetBSD Foundation Board of Directors
 (board@) is a better point of contact.  Please, don't drag poor core
 into this.
 
 -uwe