Re: new port: alice-in-wonderland

[Ben Goren <ben@trumpetpower.com>]

On Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 06:05:01PM -0400, Jolan Luff wrote:

> I don't  think books/ needs  to be all  non-fiction/manuals does
> it?

Frankly, this was one of my first thoughts upon hearing of the new
category. I'd  love to  see a  full library  in ports. I  don't do
games, but I *do* read.

What I'm especially interested  in is format conversion. The ports
infrastructure should  make it especially  easy to convert  to any
and all  formats. It's annoying to have  to run a text  or HTML or
whatever file through some filter to get something for this year's
Palm e-reader; being able to ``FLAVOR=plucker make install'' would
be  a  godsend--almost  as  much as  being  to  install  arbitrary
software without having to reverse engineer makefiles and C++.

If   this   is   done,   before   it   starts   fragmenting   into
books/literature   and  books/technical   and  books/fantasy   and
books/historical and  what-not, I'd strongly suggest  using LOC or
Dewey  or *some*  classification  system  developed by  librarians
instead of programmers.

Whether the technical category is larger than the fiction category
should depend solely on  how many (properly-functioning) ports get
submitted. Judgements aren't  made for games; why  for literature?
Besides, books should be an easy  way to get started with porting.
More people porting books means more porters.

Cheers,

b&

-- 
Ben Goren
 mailto:ben@trumpetpower.com
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