toofishes.net

Pacman 3.2.2 and what's ahead

Posted Jan. 7, 2009 at 9:26 p.m.

So last night I finally got around to releasing pacman 3.2.2, which I have been meaning to do for nearly a month. Why the wait? There really isn't a good reason, other than the fact that pacman development hasn't been quite as exciting as it used to be for me, so being the guy in charge is more of a chore than an honor.

I've tried to figure out why this is and if there is something I can do to make it exciting again, but I'm not sure yet what that is. It isn't that I don't enjoy working on it, although its really hard to just sit down for a night and add some cool feature or fix a certain piece of code. Part of this may be due to the relatively bare lower branches- we've taken care of all the low hanging fruit, and we are left with the much harder things such as GPG integration, backend reworks, and the universal transaction.

Another thing that may be contributing is real life itself. When I first got into pacman development, I was still in school so having a "real" project to work on was exciting and a bit of a novelty. Looking back, those were the real productive days- staying up a bit too late, drinking coffee and getting work done at 3 AM. Those days don't exist anymore for me though- I have plenty of stuff to get done during the day job, so a nighttime hacking session just isn't that appealing anymore.

I've also found myself doing some other Arch duties, mostly of my own doing. I've realized I've been doing some of the sysadmin-type stuff for our server because it is new and interesting and different than what I do most of the day at work, which is a good amount of coding.

So what's ahead? I know I have some things I really need to take care of- there are GPG patches still needing review (sorry!) and Allan has been working hard at a split packages implementation which is ready for integration into the main development branch. Hopefully in the next month or so these things can get done and we can get pacman 3.3.0 out the door.

archlinux pacman

Comments (5)

Fan#1 on Jan. 7, 2009 at 11:49 p.m.:

Hey! Good job and thanks for all the excellent work. We all depend on Pacman, and I'd love to brag about GPG integration...

Michael Klier on Jan. 8, 2009 at 4:37 a.m.:

I'd just like to thank your for all your hard work as well!

In regards to the real life, I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes it's a good idea to take a step back and overthink things or just do something different. It's better to keep the fun in what you're doing by doing a little "less" than to force oneself to sth. and completely loose interest in the end.

Aaron Griffin on Jan. 8, 2009 at 3:18 p.m.:

I've been thinking about similar things recently, and I think I've come to a conclusion.

It's about talking.

Seriously. Remember all those super productivity bursts you/we had way back when? It had to do with us babbling on IRC, then switching gears to babble about pacman.

I've noticed the same with other projects, and especially at work - you get way way more done if you have someone who becomes excited/passionate about the same topic and you can reciprocate.

This is the reason I've debated coming back to IRC more often.

CD Willis on Jan. 14, 2009 at 5:29 a.m.:

I just wanted to say thanks for the work you've put into pacman. It's easily the best package management program out there for Linux.

Alejandro on Jan. 20, 2009 at 10:52 a.m.:

Just thanks!!

Pacman 3.2.2 and what's ahead

Posted Jan. 7, 2009 at 9:26 p.m.

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