Dan Winship wrote:

> On Oct 4, 2004, at 4:47 PM, Alistair Crooks wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 03:37:02AM +0000, Johnny C. Lam wrote:
>>
>>> I think we should fix up pkgsrc to allow subdirectories of arbitrary
>>> depth containing packages within each category.
>>
>>
>> This is a nice idea - we have long put off the prospect of moving to
>> subordinate directories, and probably with good reason - there is a
>> certain amount of logic that presupposes a rigid category/package
>> structure.
>
>
> If we're going to dramatically reorganize pkgsrc, can we get rid of 
> categories-as-directory-names and just split pkgsrc/ up by first 
> letter of package name or something? The current "organization" is 
> full of inconsistencies. Even after years of using it I sometimes have 
> to do "cd /usr/pkgsrc/*/pkgname" to find a package. (Why is zlib in 
> devel, but zziplib is in archivers? Why is SDL_image in graphics but 
> SDL_gfx is in devel? Why is xless in x11 but xtail in misc, or 
> alternatively, why is xtail in misc and wtail in sysutils? Etc, etc, etc)
>

It would be nice to be able to come up with some sort of compromise;  
when I'm looking for a specific package, the "categories" do seem to get 
in the way, but when I'm just browsing for software that performs a 
particular function, the categories often prove helpful...

+j