From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1QU5FQ-0008B5-1J for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:59:44 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 190D41C002; Tue, 7 Jun 2011 22:58:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ww0-f53.google.com (mail-ww0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C20491C00C for ; Tue, 7 Jun 2011 22:58:21 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwj40 with SMTP id 40so4871178wwj.10 for ; Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:58:21 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references :in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding :message-id; bh=Wq0qSRZA+7bgURnLyGSeVVdXpWz5jRRdKSPN82KJu0M=; b=QnhnxYJfXc+RAwcUrUdE8CFfxpen8QM2HHof+7o75oqmGN4uRPxfjjih1cHG2l8PAM 1KZYr1GOooiu7Sp5mqoAjho6pUXrGb5VUqkDqYj5mIveQEQIbCUyxzTMf9lyPxieE9le 3oQCBc/gcsf/Bhoj9wTgivBX8oaMoFNOqgxBQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=AVxFKdB1Nt8Clm/MBy8CvHYfsBVHy0FXyFh9yGtLIwhkHdXAFV80Ql0TkOitPnStw0 yPXUywhUMDzpKPH2dW4aIddKF28gyz4bcVkqTNikhlpZlX9irdLjxsJxsoz2GbbjMuan VBmb6VomDV6IlhCKlrFk2HcjPWe9csn+R1of0= Received: by 10.227.55.20 with SMTP id s20mr6904037wbg.15.1307485958522; Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:32:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-210-183-215.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.183.215]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id en1sm3899966wbb.18.2011.06.07.15.32.36 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:32:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] portage-2.2.0_alpha38 & --depclean Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 00:32:03 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.7 (Linux/2.6.39-ck; KDE/4.6.3; x86_64; ; ) References: <201106071110.25887.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <201106072307.51530.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201106080032.03877.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: cf2463c96f73bac3be759303e1fc1b05 Apparently, though unproven, at 23:39 on Tuesday 07 June 2011, Mark Knecht did opine thusly: > I have no problem with saying someone needs to understand what less > does. less isn't important. It's just the example at hand today. The > 'problem' that I'm trying to get closer to answering is how does > anyone other than a Gentoo dev, assuming some reasonable amount of > effort, know that less isn't called by some script somewhere during > the init process? How does one come to understand that maybe less is > just as import as python is to the emerge process? (and I know it > isn't...) > > What I didn't like about this issue popping up yesterday is that it > altered the idea that average users never touch anything in @system. > Iin fact, TTBOMK I've never in 11 or 12 years of running Gentoo ever > done an emerge -C on a @system package until this morning when I > removed nano. OK, now we're tracking. In the specific case of less, the answer is self-evident - it isn't needed. A dev would just know that. More likely, he would assume he knows that. In the general case, they suck their thumbs and guess. Some think more than others before they guess, they should all do some basic tests to catch severe errors before committing changes and additions, and all of them rely on unstable users finding other oddities and bugs. flameeyes gave some hints and clues into how this works on his blog recently: http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2011/05/25/psa-packages-failing-to-install-with-new- openrc-based-stages-missing-users-and-groups It's specific to openrc, but if you follow his blog it's easy to read between the lines to see what he's getting at usually. I don't think I've ever met a dev that releases code any other way :-) None of the above is fact and all of it is my opinion but I do think I'm close to the mark. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com