[Savannah-hackers-public] cgit/gitweb - description updates

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello,

I've updated the 'description' files for git repositories, which will be shown 
on the gitweb/cgit web pages.
The description is taken from the 'group-name' field of the database (not the 
'short-description')

The script is currently made to run only once;
it will not update existing description because for existing descriptions have 
been entered manually.
It can be easily modified to always override descriptions, and be added as a 
cron-job.

The script is here:
  vcs:/root/agn/git-descriptions-update/gnu-sv-vcs-update-git-description.sh
backup of previous 'description' files is here:
  
vcs:/root/agn/git-descriptions-update/description-files-backup-2015-02-22.tar.bz2
logs of which projects/files where updated is here:
  vcs:/root/agn/git-descriptions-update/log-2015-02-22-220000/*


- Assaf

---
(now, going on a tangent...)

To make things a bit more complicated, it seems (at least for GNU projects) 
that there are several different places with names and descriptions, and each 
project uses them a bit differently.

Perhaps GNU maintainers could be encouraged to modify those, to make it more 
standard?

Examples:

In the savannah database, there are four relevant items:
1. unix_group_name   - the short "system name" (e.g. 
gawk/coreutils/autoconf/sed/gnulib).
2. group_name        - the "title", which is commonly "GNU Awk" or "GNU M4", 
but sometimes it's shorter or longer.
3. short_description - perhaps assumed to be a single sentence or title, but sometimes 
longer. The web interfaces says "limit to 255 chars" so there is no hint as to 
make it succinct).
4. long_description  - sometimes long and detailed, other times - empty.

In most packages (at least the C-based ones), there's also the 'PACKAGE' 
parameter to AC_INIT in 'configure.ac' in many of the projects.

And in 'vcs', there's the 'description' file in the git repository - which was 
entered manually.

These value aren't always consistent (they do not conflict of course, but 
there's no clear standard).

===
Example:
For 'coreutils':
  unix_group_name: coreutils
       group_name: GNU Core Utilities
short_description: The GNU Core Utilities are the basic file, shell and text 
manipulation utilities of the GNU Operating System.
 long_description: (empty)
AC_INIT(PACKAGE):  GNU Coreutils
vcs-description:   GNU coreutils

for 'grep':
  unix_group_name: grep
       group_name: grep
short_description: Grep searches one or more input files for lines containing a 
match to a specified pattern. By default, grep prints the matching lines.
 long_description: (empty)
AC_INIT(PACKAGE):  GNU grep
vcs-description:   grep

for 'sed':
  unix_group_name: sed
       group_name: GNU sed
short_description: NULL
 long_description: NULL
AC_INIT(PACKAGE):  GNU sed
vcs-description:   GNU stream editor

for 'gnulib':
  unix_group_name: gnulib
       group_name: gnulib - GNU portability library
short_description: This is a collection of many files that GNU and other free 
software projects can use to achieve cross platform portability, and reduce 
code duplication. There is no distribution tarball; developers should just grab 
source files from the repository.

 long_description: Gnulib is intended to be the canonical source for most of the 
important "portability" and/or common files for GNU projects.  These are files 
intended to be shared at the source level; Gnulib is not a library meant to be installed 
and linked against.

While portability across operating systems is not one of GNU's primary goals, 
it has helped introduce many people to the GNU system, and is worthwhile when 
it can be achieved at a low cost.  This collection helps lower that cost.

There is no distribution tarball; developers should just grab source files from the 
repository.  Please see <http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/> for more details.

vcs-description:  gnulib - GNU portability library


for 'gawk':
  unix_group_name: gawk
       group_name: GNU awk
short_description: gawk is the GNU implementation of the standard awk utility, 
with many improvements and extensions.

 long_description: As of 19 November 2010, gawk has moved to maintaining 
sources in Git.  The CVS archives will remain available for a while, but no new 
updates will be applied to them.

Use the "gawk-4.0-stable" branch for access to the current, stable code base.  Use the 
"master" branch for access to the development version.

The stable tree is for bug fixes and performance improvement only. The 
development tree is where new features are added and things are by definition 
unstable.  Use the latter for production AT YOUR OWN RISK.  Nonetheless, some 
exciting things are happening in the development tree, so check them out!

AC_INIT(PACKAGE):  GNU Awk
vcs-description: gawk
====

In the long run, perhaps it will be useful to encourage maintainers to aim for 
"group_name" to be a title such as "GNU XXXX",
and "short description" to be a single descriptive sentence.
examples for one-sentense "short_description" are:
"GNU M4 is an implementation of the traditional Unix macro processor."
"gawk is the GNU implementation of the standard awk utility, with many improvements 
and extensions."
"The GNU Core Utilities are the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities of 
the GNU Operating System."

To see the names/descriptions for all gnu projects, see:
  fencepost:~agn/gnu-project-names/