Re: [gentoo-dev] USE Flags

[Thomas de Grenier de Latour <degrenier@easyconnect.fr>]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:01:18 +0100
Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> wrote:

> I'll add some nice tag to support this.

I'm sorry to insist, but is there something wrong with using
use.local.desc, as i've proposed in bug #84884? I don't understand
the rational for choosing metadata.xml. In my opinion, it makes
this detailed description less likely to be written (more
complex syntax, whereas the one of .desc file is already
well-known), and less likely to be read (lack of user tools
whereas there are plently for use.local.desc, which would need at
most small trivial changes, if any). 

Also, take the following scenario:

 - use.local.desc has: 
"cat/pkgA:foo - adds support for libfoo as a replacement of \
libbar. Do not enable it but if you really know what you do."

 - then comes cat/pkgB, which also support libfoo:
"cat/pkgB:foo - adds support for libfoo, for playing .foo files"

 - And more packages start supporting libfoo, thus "foo" becomes 
a global flag:
"foo - adds support for libfoo"
With the "metadata.xml" approach, that will require moving the
existing descriptions from use.local.desc to the various xml
files.  At the contrary, with the "keep it in use.local.desc"
approach, no additional work is required... 


So could someone explain me that choice?

Thanks,

-- 
TGL.
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