Re: [gentoo-dev] portage question

[Henti Smith <bain@reaper.org>]

> :) I think I'll have to be a bit more spesific on this
> 
> If we have a source-1.0 that reads
> /*
>  This is a lovely comment
> */
> 
> and then a source-1.1 that reads
> /*
>  This comment make more sense
> */
> 
> a diff would look something like
> /*
> - This is a lovely comment
> + This comment make more sense
> */


this is verey understandable ...... but 

If you as a developer is going to change he's whole codebase and only 
bump the version from 1.0 to 1.0.1 ... peopl are going to shoot you !!! 
That is also another reason why people MUST learn to read changelogs before 
doing anything as a whole codebase shift should be commented in thw changelog.

> As we see the diff is larger than both the sources, and this will happen
> as soon as the all the source is fully replaced. This is actually a worst
> case scenario and hence not a good example, nevertheless I believe that
> fetching source-1.0.tar.gz and patch-1.1.tar.gz often will result in
> downloading more than just source-1.1.tar.gz, thus it will not be cost
> effective to get the patch unless one already have the sources that the
> patch applies to. Therefor I believe that if we should implement this into
> portage it would be nice to have some checks looking at what relevant
> source-files we already have, how large the patches are and how large the
> full source download is. Then it should be quite easy to consider what
> will be the least time consuming download.

99,9% of the time .. a patch will be smaller then the whole tarball .. 
yes there are duplicate lines in a patch .. but no changes will be THAT drastic as 
to make the patch bigger then the original source. 

Even if it is ... the developer who releases a patch bigger then the target complete source 
is not worth he's salt in this comunity

> Taking in consideration that many (most/all?) gentoo-users keep their
> systems up to date at all times with emerge -u world it probably would be
> a great ideá just with patches, but I think that new installs and install
> of packages with huge rewrites will benefit from having clean full source
> downloads. Thus I suggest these checks.

I think size is the only consern here .. as long as the md5 checks out only size should be considered.
It's smaller to download patches from verion x to y then to download y completely.

therefor get patches ... 

If there are people that HAVE to use source ... look at something like USE to pass the variable in 

USE="-x -gtk -patch" will no use X, GTK, or patches to make ... 
USE="x gtk patch" will use X, GTK and patches not the source ...

> Please arrest me if I am wrong ..

woulnd't dream of it ... freedom is what this is all about :) 

Henti Smith