[arch-general] virtualbox additions package naming

[Magnus Therning]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:18:36AM +0200, Heiko Baums wrote:
> Am Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:48:34 +0800
> schrieb Ray Rashif <schiv at archlinux.org>:
> 
> > Why? Because, 'virtualbox-additions' would be just as confusing as
> > 'virtualbox-guest-additions' to a newcomer.
> 
> Not quite. When I was a newcomer to virtualbox I first read something
> about it incl. on upstream's website. There I found the Virtualbox
> Guest Additions - it was only an iso and nothing else - and found out
> what they are for. When searching the Arch Linux repos I found
> virtualbox-additions and virtualbox-guest-additions and I was really
> confused when virtualbox-guest-additions didn't do what I expected it
> to do (downloading and storing this iso). And then I asked myself: What
> is that and what is virtualbox-additions about which I never read
> anything particularly not on upstream's website?

I went through this too, but I read the names differently.  The guest
additions are *contained* on the ISO, so I assumed that the guest
additions were in the package names virtualbox-guest-additions; the
package is a shortcut bypassing the need to download an ISO, mount it
in the guest, and install the additions from there.

> So I think a correct naming scheme is pretty important particularly
> for newcomers.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, and if it's possible to come up with
good names, and thereby not force newcomers to also read the pkgdesc
before understanding what the packages contains, then that should be
done.

Other people have much more insight into the consequences of swapping
names, so I'll stay out of that discussion.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                      OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 
email: magnus at therning.org   jabber: magnus at therning.org
twitter: magthe               http://therning.org/magnus

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have
C++ in mind.
     -- Alan Kay
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