From: "NAKAMURA, Hiroshi" <nahi@...>
Date: 2003-01-25T13:34:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

Hi, Gavin and Daniel,

> From: "Gavin Sinclair" <gsinclair@soyabean.com.au>
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 12:25 AM

> >> 1) Find a more accessible domain name.  www.ruby-lang.org/raa is not as
> >> easy to remember as www.cpan.org.  Unfortunatelly 
> >> (ruby|cran|raa).(org|net) are all taken.
> 
> > How do you feel raa.ruby-lang.org ?
> 
> It's logical and compelling.

We ruby-lang.org admins are talking about its possibility.

> >> 3) RAA is hard to browse.  I think that a setup of the style of
> >> www.search.cpan.org is best.
> 
> > I don't use CPAN modules so I seldom use CPAN search...
> 
> > What is the most significant point of all the features which
> > CPAN search have and RAA don't have, do you think?  We'll
> > change it better and better untill RAA.succ comes.
> 
> I never use it, but in order to justify this "me too"-ish post, I did
> my bit and tried to answer your question anyway :)

Thank you for your great summary.  Much help us.

> search.cpan.org provides the following features:
> 
> 1. Clear enumeration of categories up front
> 
> In contrast to RAA's very hierachical structure, CPAN seems to be
> organised around 26 categories.  When I used to use it, I actually
> found it confusing, as I roughly knew what I was looking for, but
> couldn't decide which of 2 or 3 categories was the most logical place
> to find it.  So I used it for browsing, but was never convinced that
> it all made sense.

Sure.  CPAN seems to have many(26) top categories, compared
with RAA has only 4 top categories.  But from another point;
CPAN top categories are for library, right?  RAA library section
has 86 subcategories now.
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library

Hmm.  Should RAA have independent library (metadata) archive
such as RLA: Ruby Library Archive?

Too few prepared category(4: Doc, Ports, App, and Lib) and
too much author opened free category(86 for Lib, now) are
exactly a big problem of RAA.  But continuous categorizing
(not only at once, continuously) is much more than one or two
person do.

> 2. Search options (search in modules, distros, or authors, or all)
> 
> Pretty straightforward really.  RAA's not so big that it needs this.
> Search all works fine.

Sure.  It's on our ToDo so you'll see in the future.

> 3. Browse by author
> 
> Good idea, but annoyingly over-hypertext.  I want to browse all
> authors on one page, with an index up the top using anchors.  This
> forces you onto a different page for each author.
> 
> I'd like this feature in RAA.

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/owners.html
and
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/owner.rhtml?id=8
We already have a pae for each owner?
Do you mean that the owner listing page might be simplified?

> 4. Recent updates
> 
> Browse the last 7 days of "uploads".  I hate arbitrary limits - why
> not allow you to go further back.  But it's good anyway.

For now, please use YARAA: http://ruby.yi.org/raa/ .
Metadata is replicated via SOAP between RAA(master) and
YARAA(replica).  YARAA developed features will be integrated
to RAA in the future.

> RAA should allow you to view "recent updates" separately from "recent
> additions", but I've carped on about that enough and you've agreed to
> support it in future.   \(^o^)/

Yeah.  I hope you'll see in this month.

> 5. About/Mirrors/Feedback
> 
> Various meta-information/services.
> 
> 6. FAQ
> 
> RAA should have one, including plans for future updates.

I like those to have.

> So I dug into a search to see what functionality I could find.  I
> searched for MIDI in Modules and got 33 results.  (MIDI in all got 413
> or something.  Go figure.)

> Good feature: change the number of entries per page.  The output is
> nice and neat; RAA could take an example here.

Sure.  I pushed it the ToDo list.

> That concludes my tour of search.cpan.org.  I don't see any killer
> feature in it that puts any daylight between it and RAA, just a more
> professional look and a few little things.  I've said it before, but
> the last major update to RAA was a quantum leap, and the whole
> community applauds your efforts (^^)// so the pace of improvement is
> already very good.

Again, many thanks for your survey.  I'll try to reflect your
suggestions.

> PS. See http://club.pep.ne.jp/~hiroette/en/facemarks/index.html for
> the great Japanese smileys!

I didn't know the site.  Good explanation. \(^-^)/

Regards,
// NaHi