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From: Heiko Muenkel <muenkel@tnt.uni-hannover.de>
To: hniksic@srce.hr
Cc: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: Goals for the packaging system
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>>>>> "Hrv" == Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:


    Hrv> A novice XEmacs user doesn't want to be given chances to
    Hrv> decide.  He will probably want all the downloadable versions
    Hrv> of XEmacs to be usable, to a lesser or greater extent.
    Hrv> Emacs-Lisp mode and C mode are the very minimum of
    Hrv> usefulness.  Gnus, W3 and hyperbole are its maximums.

The core XEmacs isn't for the novice user - it is for the more
experienced user. I think that novice user would prefer the Sumo
XEmacs, if he has no resource restrictions.

    Hrv> We can also provide several choices, like core XEmacs
    Hrv> (unusable), mediocre XEmacs (a choice of good packages), and
    Hrv> Sumo XEmacs (the equivalent of the current tarball), but in
    Hrv> my opinion this plethora of possibilities will only cause
    Hrv> further confusion among users.

I'd like to see exactly this. 

    Hrv> If we aren't very careful with handling this, XEmacs will
    Hrv> become synonymous with user's *unfriendliness*.  Steve, think
    Hrv> long and hard before making long-term decisions.

If you feel, that multiple choices makes it too hard for a novice user
to get the right tar files, than we could make it easier for him, by
moving all files, which are intended for an expert in a subdirectory
called additional-files-only-for-experts. Another possible solution
is to provide only a configure option, called --install-core-xemacs,
and no core tar files. A user who is able to figure out this option
should be also able to deal with it.

I think that this isn't different from the design of a good elisp
package - the default values of the variables should be set to useful
values, so that the novice user has only to load the package to use
it. But there should be tons of variables to change the behaviour of
the package and adapt it to the users need. And if he become an
expert, he'll learn how to use the variables.

So give the novice users the medicore or sumo versions and the experts
the core versions.


Heiko

