Hello Ciaran,

Friday, August 8, 2014, 5:22:03 PM, you wrote:

>> get the result - install the application you need, leaving everything
>> else AS IS untouched and stable?

> cave resolve --lazy :P

A great option name :-) I liked it. Wish it were there. 

Updating only the minimum necessary packages required is natural, wide
system update is a wrong math model. There are regulations 
in avionics, cybernetics and other life sensitive construction bureaus 
prohibiting system wide updates. BTW - directly follows from nature. 

Any complex bird is not updated on daily basis, it takes small steps, 
small changes targeting only small fixes - natures is adaptive and 
doesn't know where to move, it probes carefully, always backups, always
reversible, moves forward but very accurately, if the change 
in a bird is deep the chance is that it will stop functioning and die - for 
nature that means millions of years of genome programming is wasted. Whew, 
a lot of work.

NATURE is VERY lazy, and that's why I liked your option name a lot :-) you 
nailed it. 

From Cybernetics: 

Laziness is a built in algorithm. It controls system resources in case there 
is no threat to the system purposes with higher priorities. In other words - 
if what you're doing right now is well adopted to fulfill hard-coded in 
genome high priority purposes - there IS NO NEED TO CHANGE anything. 


GENTOO (and many other systems) in many ways violate the profound nature 
laws found out by venerable scientists, therefore what is done in long 
perspective is futile, it's more like painting the grass. 
You need 100 times more effort and resources to keep grass painted, each 
time you paint - a system wide update happens which is then REVERSED by nature. 
May be not a good example - but reflecting. 

One of the main built-in by nature perceptions of what is RIGHT or WRONG in human Genmoe
is time. After all our lifes are limited and the most precious what we have 
is time. 

Returning to our programming. 

Anything what is designed by a programmer for a user should be first evaluated from 
the time users spends. In fact you have no control over it - as a programmer you either 
accept it or leave the trade. If user feels he spends time - the project is a failure.

Anything you ever design - should require no time for a user to achieve the 
result. And finding and accessing what eats time is the virtue a talented programmer
has. 

Those are problems we face with GENTOO design if only the team could clearly state 
the problems and shift focus on their solution - GENTOO would be the greatest system 
ever. 

BUT 

From Cybernetics: 

As the environment changes - most systems are designed to adopt. Meaning there are many alternative 
systems solving differently same tasks, not VERY differently but differently enough to function 
in a situation where another system would cease. Many variants of the same system with variations exist 
in nature.

That what keeps is pulling in different directions, we're moving somewhere as most of us are not 
aware of deep algorithms inside of us which rules us so subtly. 

The nature is the greatest system designer, we all have to learn from it. 

PS 

Jeroen knows an option, but he won't tell - he is from 
GENTOO bug tracking service - no one can stand bug tracking for 
more than 1 year and he is there for more than 5, so you reckon..
he is probably reading this right now - try to be very quiet...

-- 
Best regards,
 Igor                            mailto:lanthruster@gmail.com