Re: versionator.eclass terminator, was [gentoo-dev] Re: GLEP 55 updated

[Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com>]

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On Mon, 18 May 2009 17:28:00 +0200
Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 May 2009 16:16:46 +0100
> Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Why do you think I wrote the awful hack that is versionator?
> 
> Why don't you explain why, historically, you put that in the tree? It
> would help us now if you were to simply record your mistakes for
> everybody else to easily avoid. It's still being used in the tree and
> should be discouraged.

Versionator was created because the alternative was worse: developers
were hard-coding versions in ebuilds, writing dodgy bash substitutions
that wouldn't reliably convert between versions and using things like
sed and tr in global scope.

The problem is, versionator was written before the current version
rules. It doesn't handle some things that are now legal, and it still
uses the old meanings for numeric components.

The correct solution is two-fold:

* Replace versionator with package-manager internal functions that use
  the package manager's rules for version parsing.

* Reduce the need to use MY_PV by extending the version rules.

Both of these are things that can't be done with current EAPI rules.

> > Anything that finally lets us kill that off has to be good...
> 
> Loosening VERSION requirements won't fix the problem. This will:
> 
> 1) Discourage its use by putting a QA ewarn in the eclass.
> 2) Have all ebuilds converted either through QA bugs or a nice
> Saturday afternoon coding spree.
> 3) Announce its removal.
> 4) Remove.

You can't discourage versionator until the replacement's in place.
Going back to the old way of doing things is a loooooot worse than
using versionator. So no, the way to fix it is:

1) Change the EAPI rules to allow global scope and version suffix
changes.

2) Bring in a versionator replacement done as internals in a new EAPI.

3) Extend the version format rules in a new EAPI.

4) Disallow versionator use in the first EAPI that has 2) and 3).

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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