Re: Re: ntfs resize and gtk frontends

[Andrew Clausen]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 04:18:10PM +0100, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
>   - one of the most disliked one described below, even a patch is provided
>     to solve it (at least partly),
> 
>       http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-parted/2003-05/msg00046.html
> 
>     Knowing where things are in sector level is very important 
>     occasionally.

This patch only solves half the problem.  I guess it's the important
half though.  (The other half is getting Parted to talk to you in
custom units)

Besides, this usually isn't a problem, because things get rounded
in a big way for alignment stuff.

>   - decimal point usage in sizes is IMHO confusing, useless, ridiculous 
>     (partition size is e.g. 315003089.536 bytes). If one needs better 
>     resolution then he/she should use smaller units. But see above.

Agreed.

>   - no save/restore partition table functionality. Partitioning is very
>     messy, complicated, a lot of scenarios. When somethings goes wrong
>     (quite frequently if you read/filter many lists/etc) the only you can
>     say "sorry, maybe next time" (or try testdisk, gpart, etc -- I hear
>     better results than using parted's 'rescue').

qtparted allows you to "commit".  I think this is a better solution
(but both features are good)

>   - offered choice 'ignore' to the users when it is _nonsense_ and would
>     destroy their data. It does as it were demonstrated several times. 

There are plenty of times when it isn't nonsense, but you have convinced
me we should be more conservative.

>   - "report this .... bug" instead of "check out ... for updates, etc"
>     Unfortunately there isn't any Changelog/FAQ on the Parted site, not to
>     mention link to the latest release.

Is this really important?  Perhaps we should have a separate bug
list to the main list.

I think it's best to minimize the time users have to spend to report
a bug - otherwise they won't bother.

> > and have been toying in doing a reimplmentation in ocaml, with maybe
> > some coq-based prooves of good behavior, and having coq generate the
> > corresponding code afterward. But i lack some time for this, and am
> > not sure an ocaml-based libparted reimplementation would be welcome.
> 
> I'm afraid it wouldn't be :) 

I would like it, if that counts!

>   - most distros ship parted but I don't know any who ships ocaml

Debian :)

>   - many people know C thus they might contribute but most doesn't 
>     know ocaml and should learn it to do so

This is important.

>   - you would throw away a lot of "hidden" knowledge in parted and
>     you should rediscover them the hard way

I wouldn't mind watching over it.  (This is less time-consuming than
maintenance)

Cheers,
Andrew