Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Please consider removing use.stable.mask and package.use.stable.mask

[Tom Wijsman <TomWij@gentoo.org>]

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On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:32:39 +0100
hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >> we may as well remove support for mixing stable and unstable
> >> packages. In fact, this will more likely fix a few more bugs!
> 
> It was never "officially" supported. That doesn't mean we have to
> break it, just because we introduced some misdesigned ideas.

Does that mean we can actively encourage users to use it? Is its
existence an indication of it being a good designed idea? Is Portage
designed with heavily mixing software branches in mind? 

> Design decisions should be based on what a) makes ebuild development
> easier and b) benefits the user.

Mixed software branches have a lot of untested scenarios, some devs drop
bugs for them and it has caused a lot of bugs, conflicts and blockers;
I doubt if mixing software branches makes ebuild development easier or
benefits the user. It is quite the opposite, it requires more work from
the developers and has caused a ton of headaches for our users.

> Currently there are a lot of things where gentoo devs are forced to
> follow design decisions that turned out different than expected... and
> the users pick up the pieces.
>
> I'm not saying everything of that was forseeable. But it's slipping
> out of control. It just took me another 30minutes to update a gentoo
> box which I do not log into very often. I got trapped between python
> blockers, multilib blockers, a confused portage with wrong autounmask
> messages and some other things that could not be resolved
> automatically at all.

Mixed software branches fit this description.

> Users should not be forced to micro-manage all sorts of stuff for a
> simple update.

Updates are simple in stable or unstable, but not in a mix of them.

> But yeah... let's just say we don't support custom useflag settings
> anymore, because it's so much easier then and would fix a LOT of bugs.

The same could be said about mixed software branches.

> Nice going.

We're going both ways; Gentoo's choice you to go one way, or the other.

PS: I'm not personally against this "mixed software branches" feature.
It can work out if you know about the complexity involved and know the
background of that complexity; but for the average user, this is to be
used sparingly. Pure stable and unstable has always worked fine for me.

- -- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@gentoo.org
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D
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