Help System Specification: Rationale of help path

[notebook]

Thank you for input on this topic!


jtojnar:
> Note that filesystem hierarchy standard already turns the system into a big soup. 
> I would guess it has been influenced by the localedir notably used by

Shaun McCance:
> it is what it is. It's not worth the effort to change it at this point.
> The KDE person suggested that this was easier to implement

rhkramer:
> as Shaun wrote (all elided), it is probably not worth the effort to change.

Apart from the KDE-guy this sounds like "it's already like this" and "others use it, too". Perhaps I should search for records of that meeting in 2010 - or even dig into the reasoning behind `localedir` (any input welcome).

@"Changing is not worth the effort": Guessing, that the current systems live another 20+ years, I'd say it's worth the effort giving its superiority over the current system. That being commended, I should search for why things are like they are.


jtojnar:
> If you want nicer structure look at GoboLinux or Nix.
Thank you for the reference!

rhkramer:
> I am not likely to ever try to 
> access a help file in other than my native language ((American) English), so 
> getting into a directory with all the other English help files seems more 
> natural to me.

Unfortunately this only works, if you are able to enjoy the pleasure of an almost-always supported language.


Regards
Chris

On 2021/05/09 17:33, jtojnar at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> I'd like to know why help files are sorted by language first and then
>> by application name, instead of the other way around.
> 
> I would guess it has been influenced by the localedir notably used by
> GNU gettext (/usr/share/locale). Or maybe mandir (/usr/share/man),
> which also supports localizations according to FHS:
> 
> https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s11.html#usrsharemanManualPages
> 
>> Apart from easier manual handling, I would say this ordering helps
>> keeping applications apart from each other, versus, the current spec
>> looks like it turn the whole system into a big soup.
> 
> Note that filesystem hierarchy standard already turns the system into a
> big soup. If you want nicer structure look at GoboLinux or Nix.
> 
>