Re: [gentoo-dev] RFD: EAPI specification in ebuilds

[Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org>]

On 03/09/2012 11:20 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:49:44 -0500
> Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:
>>>> isnt the whole point of the proposal to get eapi without sourcing ?
>>>>
>>>> so that we can use new bash features at local or global scope
>>>> without risking that people with an old bash get syntax errors
>>>> trying to get the eapi
>>>
>>> Right. Michael has lost sight of the goal and is moving off on a
>>> tangent.
>>
>> The point was to be able to get the EAPI without crashing if the
>> ebuild uses newer features.
> 
> No, it's not. There's more to it than that.
> 
> Some EAPIs really require defining certain environment variables, shell
> options, sandbox things etc *before* the sourcing starts. It's a massive
> pain in the ass to try to handle setting that kind of thing on the fly
> once the sourcing has already started. Knowing the EAPI before having
> to spawn a bash process isn't just about performance, it's also about
> making ebuilds much less difficult to deal with.

Yeah. Another way of putting it is that the requirement to spawn a bash
process and source the ebuild adds a ridiculous amount of unnecessary
complexity, in violation of the KISS principle [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
-- 
Thanks,
Zac