Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Ability to pass arguments to src_configure/src_compile

["Alec Warner" <antarus@gentoo.org>]

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 4:03 PM, Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 23:13 Mon 08 Sep     , Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 Sep 2008 14:33:50 -0700
>> Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> > On 12:46 Sun 07 Sep     , Marcus D. Hanwell wrote:
>> > > I personally agree with several others who have replied to this
>> > > thread. The reduction in lines of code/characters seems to
>> > > introduce an uglier syntax which is harder to read with
>> > > questionable benefits.
>> >
>> > One of the great things about ebuilds is that they're very natural to
>> > write in most cases, if you can manage to build the program by hand.
>> > Raising this barrier of entry for questionable benefit seems like a
>> > bad idea. We don't need to make it any harder to begin contributing
>> > to Gentoo.
>>
>> So why are we making people know the exact ins and outs of
>> reimplementing default functions, complete with knowledge of whether or
>> not to use die, when all they need in most cases is to set a simple
>> variable instead?
>
> This series of variables and syntaxes within them doesn't seem much
> simpler than functions. From what I understand, it also conflates
> multiple concepts into a single variable name (the function name,
> whether it's USE-dependent, and how the configure flag is passed).
>
>> What proportion of people do you think know whether or not you need a
>> die with econf or emake? How many user-written ebuilds out there
>> correctly install the right docs and don't try to install docs that
>> don't exist, deal with install parallelisation correctly and handle
>> error cases properly?
>
> You're right, following all of the policy takes work. What I'm talking
> about is an entry-level ebuild hack that just gets people in the door
> and is the reason a lot of people love Gentoo.

We are not making them use this syntax; nothing stops them using the other one.

-Alec

>
> --
> Thanks,
> Donnie
>
> Donnie Berkholz
> Developer, Gentoo Linux
> Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com
>