RE: rh-rpm] RE: rpm -ba to build does not work ???

[lrtaylor micron com]

Russ,

OK.  Perhaps _I_ was a bit harsh, and my purpose was definitely not to dis the RPM site (I don't even know that the user in question got any of their information from that site).  My apologies.

However, that's not to say that I've entirely changed my mind about what I said.  After reading your response, I went back and took another look at the site, and while I think the RPM site is a good source of information, and I have found Maximum RPM to be helpful, I still do feel that the site points people more to Maximum RPM as a type of "standard reference" than as a good (or even great) source of information, albeit out of date, despite the references to other documentation, including what you've pointed out below (some of which I hadn't noticed before myself, and that I think is quite nice).  The main reason I get this feeling is due to the following sentences:

"The most comprehensive and systematic treatment within these is Maximum RPM, a book written by Ed Bailey."

"The Maximum RPM book covers everything from general RPM usage to building your own RPMs to programming with rpmlib."

Which I feel is only slightly qualified later in that section with the sentence that you highlighted:

"While not keyed to the latest versions, the underlying concepts and examples remain substantially unchanged."

For me, this gives me more the impression that, for the most part, the book just doesn't include new features that RPM has gained over the past few years.  I know that "technically", this statement does also mean that some things in RPM may not be backward compatible with the version used at the time the book was written, but it's not the first meaning to come to mind when you come across a major difference like using "rpmbuild" rather than "rpm -ba".

Now, I don't think all that needs to change really.  I think that it could possibly be "solved" by simply adding a new sentence right after that one (or wherever is most appropriate in that section) something along the lines of

"If you find that examples in Maximum RPM don't work with the version of RPM that you are using, you may also want to take a look at the Hints and Kinks page as well as the man pages for the version of RPM installed on your system."

I feel that that, at least, would be a more blatant clue that some things have changed since the book was written, and that the answers may be in one of those places.

However, all that is really beside the point I was trying to make, which is related to this sentence in the same section:

"That said, the best place for fast and knowledgeable answers to RPM usage questions (after research) is the various mailing lists."

My point was simply that long-time users and contributors to mailing lists should be a little gentler on people that ask frequently asked questions, even if they've been asked and answered a bagillion times.  Not everyone is as savvy about how or where to find answers to their questions, and when they're not, it's often a lot easier and faster to simply ask Someone Who Knows.  And while the answers may already be in the archive, I've noticed that you need to be subscribed to the list to get access to the archives.  And as for myself, I wasn't even able to view the archives when I first subscribed, so answers such as "check the archives" would have been useless for me.

Again, my response was not intended to be in any way inflammatory (I hope this one's not...), and I apologize. 

Thanks,
Lyle Taylor

-----Original Message-----
From: R P Herrold [mailto:herrold@owlriver.com]
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 9:57 PM
To: rpm-list@redhat.com
Subject: Re: rh-rpm] RE: rpm -ba to build does not work ???

On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 12:46, lrtaylor@micron.com wrote:

> Come on, Seth.  Be nice.  When even the official RPM site points you
> to out of date material as practically the standard reference on RPM
> and it (Maximum RPM) tells you to do things differently than they've
> been done for the last few years, you can't be too harsh on someone
> who doesn't know why the commands in the book (or whatever reference
> they looked at) don't work.

"the official RPM site points you  to out of date material as
practically the standard reference"   When in the workd are
you referring to??? 

In the section addressing the book, the http://www.rpm.org/ site says:
        ...  The Maximum RPM book covers everything from
        general RPM usage to building your own RPMs to programming
        with rpmlib. While not keyed to the latest versions, the
        underlying concepts and examples remain substantially
        unchanged.

The phrase 'not keyed to the latest versions' scarcely implies
"practically the standard"  to me.  The man page, or the
sources come to mind as better, in a free software world.

One cannot recall old books when things change any more than
you can expect a user to read the man page, google out the
answer, or look through a website; That same site of course
has:
    http://www.rpm.org/hintskinks/rpmbuild/
two clicks from the top page, in addition to the repeats on
the mailing list.

The source for the book, Maximum RPM, is in CVS, and available
as a freestanding srpm.  Feel free to annotate your
corrections or commentary {duly marked so as to be
distinguishable from Ed Bailey's fine work}, and send them
along.  I'll find space for them on the site.  Getting people
to read that is the challenge.

Or instead of carping about the site, provide an alternative; 
participate in the website revision mailing list, mentioned on
the mailing list page:
>     rpm-ed list
> The rpm-ed list is for discussion of EDITORIAL matters ONLY
> related to the http://www.rpm.org website. NO technical
> answers on RPM usage will be offered there.

And the source files driving the site are freely readable and
indexed, and unified diffs on a given 'body.txt' in the
directory tree are welcome.

New contributors are welcome.  I fielded a OT technical
question on building rpm from sources on HP-UX 11 just today. 
[I offered hope and referred the person asking back to this
list.]

-- Russ Herrold, Editor, rpm site.


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