Re: [gentoo-dev] Stable sys-devel/gcc USE flag changes

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I wonder if it might be pertinent for future portage's to install an
> alias command, "emerge-system-update" or similar, that would wrap the
> standardly accepted emerge update command more or less everyone
> already runs..  easier end-user experience as they don't need to
> learn/remember all the little fiddly options, plus portage dev's can
> control the default (probably we make it over-ridable via a make.conf
> var or something) so that if things change with newer EAPIs or portage
> features the default flags can be adjusted too...

I'm fairly confident that this was already discussed a while back, and
generally had positive feedback.

I'd make it easy-to-remember though - either a one-letter option, or
something short.

To avoid rehashing the same arguments over again a few things to note:
1.  The settings would be reasonably conservative - intended for
newbies and such and unlikely to break things.
2.  We would not re-use any existing parameter - no changes in behavior/etc.
3.  Users could still throw alphabet soup at portage if they already
know the one-true-way (TM).
4.  Script writers would be warned up-front that the behavior of this
feature would be subject to change without much notice.

Is there any reason that this can't just be done?  It would only be an
alias, so it shouldn't really require development per-se.

Some open questions:
1.  What is the correct use-flag behavior - -N, or --reinstall=changed-use?
2.  What is the correct --with-bdeps behavior?
3.  What is the correct --deep behavior?

Now let the bikeshedding commence...

Rich