[Yum-devel] "doastold" option, or, putting code where my mouth is

[Panu Matilainen]

On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 14:14 -0700, Michael Stenner wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 02:32:46PM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 11:00:45AM +0200, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> > > I don't like the --doastold as an option either, I'd like that to be the 
> > > default behavior.
> > 
> > I took this suggestion, and reversed the sense of the option, so it's now
> > "alwaysprompt". Turning that on (the default) enables the current behavior;
> > otherwise, it follows the ask-when-taking-the-initiative approach.
> > 
> > Still at <https://devel.linux.duke.edu/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=418> :)
> 
> OK, somebody mentioned a desire to stay away from apt's multi-level
> question system.  IIRC, debs/debconf/apt allows for 4 levels[*].  With
> this, we'll be at 3.  Why three?  Because -y needs to also work.
> 
> I certainly agree that it's reasonable for programs to make some
> intelligent guesses about what you want, and only prompt if there's
> reason to suspect you about to get what you DON'T want.  However,
> package installation becomes a bit tricky.  Somebody said that "yum
> install foo" should just proceed if only foo is to be installed.  What
> if I don't like the version or the arch?  

If in doubt, do ask the user. That's the right thing to do.
When the operation the user asks for leaves zero possibility of
misinterpretation.. DON'T waste the users time asking for the obvious
because the user already stated what (s)he wants. That's all I'm asking
for.

	- Panu -