[gentoo-dev] Re: [RFC] PROPERTIES=set for meta-packages that should behave like package sets

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> posted 48E00B9B.3060600@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on  Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:56:27 -0700:

> For example, `emerge kde-meta` would behave as as normal meta-package
> currently does, and `emerge @kde-meta` would reference the same package
> as a set and could thereby trigger different behavior which is
> appropriate for a set.

Ahh... that's rather clearer now.  Somehow I missed that bit before.

However, it seems to me we'd have some of the same types of issues we've 
previously discussed over the distinction between world and @world.  It's 
going to be virtually impossible to get some users to see the difference, 
with the consequence being that they use the wrong reference (probably 
skipping the @ as unnecessary typing) and end up with (to them) 
completely unexpected behaviour.  How long have we been drilling into 
users' heads that they need to use --pretend (or --ask) --verbose to 
check that what they intend is really what's going to happen?  Yet I just 
dealt with a case the other day where someone ended up with something 
entirely (to them) unexpected, because they failed to preview what was 
going to happen, first.

Going out of our way to (effectively) make things even /more/ confusing 
by deliberately creating set-packages that can be referred to as either, 
with different behavior in each case, would seem to be the equivalent of 
deliberately setting traps for those poor users.  (Yes, they /should/ 
know the difference and it's a PEBCAK if they don't/won't, but 
unfortunately that PEBCAK is/can-safely-be-predicted-to-be rather 
common...)

So sure, we can institute it as suggested, damn the torpedos, but I 
believe it's safely predictable that come a few months hence, after we've 
dealt with our tenth person to end up screwing their system as a result, 
we're going to rue the day...  Never-the-less, it's not my decision.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman