[20829] in Athena Bugs
Re: clearcerts vs. clear-netscape-password, etc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Hawkinson)
Fri Sep 27 15:26:46 2002
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 15:26:44 -0400
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
To: "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>
Cc: bug-infoagents@MIT.EDU, web-agents@MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <20020927192644.GG1586@multics.mit.edu>
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t. belton <tbelton@MIT.EDU> wrote on Fri, 27 Sep 2002
at 15:23:41 -0400 in <Pine.GSO.4.33L.0209271515120.13192-100000@iphigenia.mit.edu>:
> I got some bad feedback ages ago for having a version of the fix-netscape
> scripts which was a little too interactive. In fact I took some of the
> clearcerts feedback out because I wasn't sure how much was acceptable, and
> I wanted to err on the side of too little rather than too much. If people
> can get something like a consensus on how much feedback they want, it is
> easy enough to put in.
I don't think you will get useful feedback if you just make changes
and don't poll people for them. You'll get an ocassional comment
from an individual that may not reflect what most people think.
I would encourage you to be consistent. Choose a verbosity level
and have everything use it. If you decide to change it, change it in both
places.
> As for the names, they have been argued before and they'll be argued
> again. Greg doesn't like hyphens or underscores and he has made a pretty
> compelling case for the dangers of both. On the other hand, you're right
> too. This becomes a question of how dumb the user is, as I think with any
> '[verb]certificates' name there is some danger that they'll try to make it
> two words.
These are not in opposition. Choose a verb that is not a standard
unix command that ignores it's arguments. Almost anything other than
"clear" is great. "zap" is fine. "remove" is fine. "del" is fine. etc.
> I can make the names parallel but then we have people complaining that we
> changed the name yet again! Or we end up with a minefield of symlinks
> which - aside from the maintainer headache, which I suppose is
> inconsequential to everyone but me - causes problems when one help source
> calls the script by one name and others call it by something else and
> everyone gets confused.
You could just use a Makefile or shell script. to manage the symlinks.
Also, since "clearcerts" is so new, I think you can change the name
and drop the old name in the space of a week or so.
> One thing I do NOT want is to call the Mozilla script anything referring
> to passwords. Focusing on the cert password, to me, is the wrong emphasis
> and misleads the user. I want a name that makes it clear: These Scripts
> Kill Certificates Dead.
I don't think anyone is strongly in favor of having the primary name
reference passwords.
--jhawk
