Further developments w.r.t. KDevelop documentation nightmare.

[Bjoern Krombholz]

Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>
>At 09:04 PM 2/10/00 +0100, you wrote:
>
>>Better you describe what you tried, so someone could help you.
>
>Did what the instructions for installation in the online copy say. Nada.
>The KDElibs and Qt-libs documentation works, but the welcome.html and such
>don't.

>Saw that it's looking in /usr/doc/kde/HTML/default which doesn't exist and
>it seems like it ought to be looking in /usr/doc/kde/HTML/en, and deduced
>that the KDE is supposed to symlink the default path to the one
>corresponding to the system locale, and failed to for some reason. Made the
>symlink manually. It still didn't work.
> 
>I looked in the directory, and there's a skeleton directory structure with
>no actual content. I.e., the documentation simply isn't there. I looked in
>the RPM and the documentation isn't there either. The documentation is
>physically not on my system -- none of the content files are present
>anywhere on any of my hard drives. At all. They were forgotten in packaging.

OK - it seems that you really got a package without documentation. :(
I only download from ftp://fara.cs.uni-potsdam.de/pub/kdevelop/ , choose
the right one for your system. A few minutes ago I tested some of them and
all have docs included.
Some of them install to /opt/kde (f.e. SuSE) - some to /usr (f.e. RedHat).

The "default" link has to exist. You choose your language in KDE´s Control
Center. If a program has translated documentation for this language it would
look in the right path, otherwise switching to default path. While linking
"default" to any other than "en" no documentation may be found. But every
KDE software has English docs.

>>Maybe there´s something wrong with _your_ system?!
>
>Areyou kidding? I checked it and double checked it and did it all over
>again. The RPMs I got are *defective*. There is no index.html in the
>/usr/doc/kde/HTML/en/kdevelop/welcome directory, not on my hard drive, and
>not in the RPM itself -- it's not there, and there are no other HTML or
>other files there, just directories. That can't possibly be a problem with
>my system, unless my system has gremlins in it or has been posessed by evil
>spirits that erase any html files from any archives I download and leave
>the directory tree bare.

Oh, I know these little beasts ;-)


>>just do:
>>download tarball
>>unpack tarball
>>./configure --prefix="$KDEDIR"
>>make install
>
>Show me a tarball for KDevelop (one that *includes the docs, other than the
>Qt and KDE-libs ones*) and I can give that a try. (What's this --prefix=
>thing? A configure script has the brains to look at $KDEDIR itself I'd
>expect.)

That´s easy :)
ftp://fara.cs.uni-potsdam.de/pub/kdevelop/kdevelop-1.1beta2.tar.gz
with a size of 5903 Kb

´--prefix´ tells the configure script which is the main install path. 
For most people it´s the best setting this to $KDEDIR, but you do not have
to - therefore they keep it configurable.

>>Actually it grows and grows and ...
>
>Well, it just shrank by one. They'll be lucky if I ever write so much as a
>KDE app, let alone something for the core or KDevelop, after the way they
>behaved when I asked for some simple help. Nobody treats me in such a high
>handed manner and so casually flouts both the principles of democratic
>cooperation with freedom of opinion, and the basic tenets of do unto
>others, and gets away with it. I feel no reason to contribute the skin off
>a grape to them. if I ever release a KDE app, it will be for my own use and
>the use and enjoyment of users. Why they can't have the same philosophy, to
>release something for the use and enjoyment of users as well as themselves,
>I can't fathom. But if they really cared about users besides the
>pre-existing clique, they'd have been helpful from the outset. Fix it
>yourself they say, after I took every step I reasonably could and exhausted
>all courses of action that did not involve asking for help. Fix it
>yourself, as though I could magically conjure up the documentation so that
>I could package it properly and distribute it. I can't fix it myself, I
>told them, if I don't have the documentation that would constitute part of
>the fix, but still they insisted I fix it myself. Maybe they thought if I
>sat and waited long enough, there'd be a loud triple bang and a flying
>DeLorean would show up with my future self inside, who'd hand me a disk
>with the completed documentation package from the future on it, and I'd
>subsequently use the documentation to make a completed documentation
>package, distribute it online, and go back in time to give a copy of it to
>myself in the past and complete the circuit?

It is a pitty - I think you asked the wrong guys.

>>That´s why it´s called beta.
>
>No, only alphas can be reasonably expected to have such basic problems as
>missing stuff or not building out of the box. Betas should have been alpha
>tested until these kinds of showstopper problems were solved, leaving
>something that needs more extensive feedback to catch a few minor bugs,
>typos, and warts/areas needing polish that are currently rough around the
>edges.

It does not depend on the main distribution file (.tar.gz) - it´s the fault
or will of a third person who was building the RPM package - maybe he wanted
no documentation in it because not everybody needs it and it grows the file
size.


>>This is _your_ opinion - I wouldn´t like to have kde docs in /usr, that
>>makes it easier to put the whole KDE stuff on another partition f.e. ...
>
>Well, that's the whole point of $KDEDIR, isn't it? So it's not forced into
>a particular part of someone's directory tree. So you ought to agree with
>me about "respect the $KDEDIR".

Yes, I would agree, but others won´t ;)

>>If you want to work with KDevelop you will need a compiler, so it´s
>>installed, so stop packaging and compile by your own, so you will even
>>learn something about your system... :-) That´s my opinion and I am no
>>hardcore developer, indeed!
>
>I tried that and the sources wouldn't build. I
>* Got the latest source rpm for my distrib
>* Skimmed the man page for rpm up until I found the section on building, then
>  read and determined that the build command to build+install was -bi;
>* Invoked rpm to build and install the thing;
>* Stared aghast at an error message that indicated a problem beyond my ability
>  to correct.

As I already mentioned try building from tar.gz distribution.
When an error occures the best to do is to post the output depending on it to
this list (often the last 20 lines should be enough for detecting the reason).
Then lots of people will help you - and the developers will try to fix the code
if there´s something buggy.
 
>Namely, it said something about an illegal, non-ASCII charcter somewhere.
>This isn't a failed dependency or other problem that the user can fix. Only
>someone who was intimately familiar with the sources for KDevelop could
>reasonably be expected to fix the problem. Finding the bad character would
>be one thing; even deleting it; finding out what was *supposed* to be there
>or dealing with a more extensive corruption than a single bad character is
>totally beyond my capabilities, or those of anyone not an expert on the
>KDevelop internals.

Post the error output and we´ll see :)

>>Where is the right place for package to install?
>
>For KDE stuff, $KDEDIR, of course.

Not at all ;o)

>>You do not need to abuse somebody or his work in such a condescend way...
>
>Not even if that's apparently the only thing that will get his attention?
>
>>otherwise the only thing you´ll get back (and in my opinion earn) is some
>>flame against you.
>
>Well, Socrates created a big stink about problems rampant in his world, and
>wound up a martyr, but there was the beginning then of a philosophical
>renaissance that led to the rise of modern science. I'll endure a few
>flames if it might call attention to some problems that sooner or later get
>fixed as a result, leading to at least some users benefiting...

Nice attitude :) but the sound of your first postings could bring out a big
thunder sturm with raining fire, terrible earthquakes and the whole nature
against you ;)

Bjoern

PS:
paul mail to may has been a private one - but i decided to post the answer,
because it might be helpfull for someone.