[gentoo-dev] Re: Diff alternatives for etc-update

[Dylan Carlson <absinthe@pobox.com>]

On Saturday 11 January 2003 03:54pm, Kai Großjohann wrote:
> > I posted this in -user, but will do so again here... I believe one of
> > the easier things we can do is add support for other diff utils in
> > /etc/make.conf/.  kompare, kdiff3, gtkdiff, whatever...
>
> But it's more important to diff the right files (or versions).
> IMVHO, it's 90% which version and 10% how the diff looks.

Sure, it's important to save the user a step by diffing the most recent 
version of the config file...

...however I believe it's more important that users (some of whom are not 
regularly diffing files) can clearly see & understand what's changing.  If 
they merge incorrectly, they can screw up their system.

I say -- allow them access to tools which might make that process easier.

Making it configurable allows the user to decide the tool they want to use 
to merge, instead of us trying to make everyone happy with our sdiff 
wrapper...

sdiff's fine as a default, obviously... it works as-is, but I think 
everyone would enjoy etc-update a lot more if they had a choice of tools.  
I suspect one day we'll have a better homegrown Gentoo tool, but I don't 
see that happening in the next 6 months...

Cheers,
Dylan Carlson [absinthe@pobox.com]

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list