rawhide report: 20050516 changes

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 5/17/05, nodata <fedora at nodata.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't want any more information about updates.
Wow.. someone who wants less communication.
> My point is that those that read the list will know that a empty list of
> updates packages _probably_ means that no packages were updated, but it is
> also likely that something went wrong. We won't know - we'll assume that
> it means no packages are updated.

I don't see how you can programmatically tell if something went wrong
or not in all cases.  Some problems could very well look like no
updates and the script could very well end up communicating the wrong
information.  I really don't think its worth the time taking what is
probably a somewhat simple shell script and instrumenting it up into
something that distiguishes why there are no updates. The worst thing
you can do is give inaccurate information.  That is why I haven't
filed this as an RFE in bugzilla... have you?

> If no packages are updated, why announce it to the list?

I'm pretty sure getting things from cvs..to the buildserver.. and then
into the public rawhide tree is a multistep process.  The script that
fires is just one of the last steps.  If the script doesn't fire..
that could be an indication of certain types of problems. If there
script reports no updates.. that could be an indication of problems at
another step earlier on that the script has no control over.  All we
know is that the script ran and it saw no updates...the script could
very well not be able to tell the difference between a problem and no
updates in some situations.

-jef