[gentoo-dev] Re: Reinstating eclasses

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

Joe Peterson <lavajoe@gentoo.org> posted 4910A2C7.3030703@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on  Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:30:15 -0500:

> In general, it makes sense to me to have an unversioned one if there is
> no version dependency - i.e. if xfce.eclass would likely work for future
> ones (like "xfce5").  I'm not sure why, other than to emphasize that a
> new version is out, upstream packages (like gnome, kde, etc.) include
> the version in the name.  I actually just think of kde as "kde", myself,
> even if it happens to be version 4.  ;)

FWIW, KDE changes major versions seldom enough and with enough 
differences between versions, that it's a good time to break package 
handling and get rid of the cruft at the Gentoo level as well.  In the 
case of KDE4, before anything even close to stable ever hit the tree, the 
Gentoo/KDE folks took the opportunity to require various EAPI-2 features 
including sets, thereby removing much of the cruft and maintainability 
headaches of the kde3 packages and their corresponding eclasses.  kde4 
eclasses were then the logical choice, since the unversioned kde 
nameslots were already taken, and if/when there's a kde5, as with kde4, 
it's likely to be so different it'll be time to once again break with the 
past and use an entirely new setup, new eclasses, etc.

Presuming something similar for xfce, if xfce4 is taken but xfce isn't, 
that would work, or perhaps xfce4ng.eclass...  *ng is always good for a 
round... and if it comes to it beyond that, g3, g4, etc.  Of course, 
that's sort of like Gentoo's -rX numbers for ebuilds, but the -rX concept 
doesn't so well lend itself to the eclass concept as it implies a rather 
faster turnover than we'd /hope/ to be the case, but -ng/-gX, that works. 
=:^)

-- 
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