[gentoo-amd64] Re: KDE 4.0.4 upgrade, sort of.

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

David Leverton <levertond@googlemail.com> posted
200805312034.51915.levertond@googlemail.com, excerpted below, on  Sat, 31
May 2008 20:34:51 +0100:

> On Saturday 31 May 2008 20:25:42 Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
>> New in pkgcore:
>> --ignore-failures:
>> [snip]
>>
>> people who asked for a similar functionality in paludis were called
>> stupid. (asking for skipfirst equivalent)
> 
> [dleverton@shiny-one ~] $ paludis --help [snip]
>   --continue-on-failure  Whether to continue after a fetch or install
>   error
>       if-fetch-only   If fetching only (default)
>	never           Never
>       if-satisfied    If remaining packages' dependencies are satisfied
>	if-independent  If independent of failed and skipped packages
>       always          Always (UNSAFE)

I don't have a particular dog in this fight, but that's not the same 
thing.  --skip-first allows the admin to react to whatever when wrong, 
try to fix it, and use the skip option only if he decides it's 
warranted.  IOW, it's sort of interactive, tho over time.  It appears 
this option must be added at the beginning, before one knows there'll be 
an error, and independent of what that error might be.  

(I'm assuming paludis creates a log of what failed, so one can try them 
again later, after fixing the problem or getting a package update or 
whatever.  If not, that's another difference, as the --skipfirst option 
allows one to (manually) create such a list, and in fact that's what I 
use it for when doing an emerge --emptytree after upgrading gcc, for 
instance.  The old packages often still work fine so don't /have/ to be 
upgraded, but with a list, as they are fixed to work with the new 
version, they can be retried and if successful, stricken from the list, 
thus gradually shrinking the number of packages not compatible with the 
new gcc version.)

I did see the log where the --skipfirst functionality request was called 
stupid.  I never quite understood why.  If the above was already there 
and considered equivalent, I can see why the request might be called 
stupid, but nobody bothered to explain that if it was indeed the case, so 
both the requester and all the others that ended up seeing that IRC log 
missed out on the real answer.  Unfortunately, that sort of "missing out" 
has become somewhat of a pattern, altho if/when the explanation /does/ 
come, it's usually very well reasoned out.  It's just worse than pulling 
teeth to get it, sometimes, even on the devel list after being asked 
repeatedly by multiple devs, which is where I see the pattern repeated 
most often, since as a good admin, I lurk there to see what's coming down 
the road before I hit it.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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