On 10-Sep-2008, Joey Hess wrote: > Ben Finney wrote: > > This bug, then, becomes a minor one: the error message doesn't explain > > what's wrong to someone who installed the package and all its > > 'Depends' and 'Recommended' dependencies, but knows nothing about its > > implementation. > > > > If the error message said "External ikiwiki plugins require the > > 'librpc-xml-perl' package, is it installed?" or similar, this bug > > would be fixed. > > I don't think that encoding information about debian package names in > error messages is a good idea.
That's a good point; hard-coding the package name in the error message may be a poor choice. That's only one possible resolution, though. I maintain that the error message (as initially reported) is unhelpful for knowing what's wrong. The 'Suggests' control field is good, but the error message doesn't lead the user to look there. If a plugin is installed by the 'ikiwiki' package, it's rather counter-intuitive that the plugin won't work at all until further packages are installed. Perhaps the solution is to make the error message unnecessary, by having the dependencies structured differently: Since you say that certain libraries are required for any external plugins to work, would it not make sense to have those external plugins in a separate 'ikiwiki-plugins' package that itself depends on the required libraries? Then, 'ikiwiki' could 'Suggests: ikiwiki-plugins', and it would be much clearer at install time that to get any plugins working, the 'ikiwiki-plugins' package must be installed. -- \ “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… | `\ It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in | _o__) the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein | Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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