apt-show-versions rewrite

To: Christoph Martin <christoph.martin@uni-mainz.de>

Cc: Debian Development <debian-devel@debian.org>, debian-derivatives@lists.debian.org, sprezzos-dev@googlegroups.com, Apt Team <deity@lists.debian.org>

Subject: apt-show-versions rewrite

From: nick black <nick.black@sprezzatech.com>

Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 08:28:14 -0400

Message-id: <[🔎] 20130310122814.GA29956@qemfd.net>

Mail-followup-to: Christoph Martin <christoph.martin@uni-mainz.de>, Debian Development <debian-devel@debian.org>, debian-derivatives@lists.debian.org, sprezzos-dev@googlegroups.com, Apt Team <deity@lists.debian.org>

(CC'd kinda widely, eh; feel free to trim responses) Hello there, Christoph! I've used apt-show-versions for years, and found it quite useful. It's a bit slow, though, and its need to update a root-owned disk cache is kind of unfortunate. As part of my RAPTORIAL project (https://github.com/dankamongmen/raptorial), I've implemented "rapt-show-versions", an apt-show-versions clone making use of my libraptorial library. This multithreaded C engine ends up being quite a bit faster than apt-show-versions; a single core run comes in around .21s whereas apt-show-versions takes about 1.01s, while allowing it to use all 4 hyperthreaded cores drops this to .04s. We will soon begin shipping RAPTORIAL tools in SprezzOS. I'm aiming for feature-equivalence with apt-show-versions (the -i option becomes a no-op, since I don't use a cache), though I'm not yet there. Core functionality is present, and debugged. The code is, so far as I know, portable across POSIX systems. I'd like to show deference to you, as the author of apt-show-versions. How would you like to proceed on this? I figure there's three options: - The apt-show-versions package begins building my code, which I will version relative to current apt-show-versions, on which there would be no further development. - A new package, rapt-show-versions, is introduced, probably with alternatives and Provides support. - The code is not introduced into Debian anytime soon. Know that I am not (yet) a DD, though I'm happy to ITP this up if someone will help it through. Please take a look, and let me know how you'd like to move forward. Note that I don't by any means propose replacing other APT components with RAPTORIAL, yet. Thanks for your time. Hack on! --nick -- nick black http://www.sprezzatech.com -- unix and hpc consulting to make an apple pie from scratch, you need first invent a universe.