Re: [gentoo-user] did python-r1 improve user experience?

[Mike Gilbert <floppym@gentoo.org>]

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 11:41 PM, William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On 27/10/13 09:30, Mike Gilbert wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:13 AM, hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> Since I maintain blender I have come across quite a few frustrated
>>> users already: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=488976#c7
>>>
>>> I am not sure myself. On one hand we don't need python-updater anymore
>>> and have very tight dependencies that ensure that all needed modules
>>> are always available for the desired implementation.
>>>
>>> On the other hand it seems to give a lot of users trouble with
>>> blockers, general configuration and mass-updates on things like
>>> removing python:2.5.
>>>
>>> What are your opinions? Did it improve user experience? What could be
>>> improved?
>>
> ...
>
> The python user experience is less than overwhelming for a user.
>
> 1. if python-update is no longer needed (first I have heard of this) why
> is it still rebuilding many packages after an upgrade ...
>

To clarify: python-updater will no longer be needed at some point in
the future when we are no longer using the old python.eclass.

> 2. I have python 2.7 installed and python 3.x is being asked to be
> installed ... isnt that enough? - shorely it can work out what it needs
> from whats been asked for/removed and whats already on the system ...
> instead we need to add these cryptic, poorly explained lines that one
> only finds out from emails etc.  The elog message for the one exception
> asks that the line be added to make.conf without telling the user what
> happens if he upgrades later (as it lists specific versions) or makes
> changes - does that line have any effect, especially if he makes a
> mistake (which I did and I am not sure what it did in the background)?
>

Making things "just work" is complex when trying to juggle 6 or more
supported versions/implementations of python.

We have tried to explain the magic make.conf lines in the Python user guide.

https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/Python/python-r1/user-guide.xml

We also try to make sure that most users never have to touch
PYTHON_TARGETS, etc; the default values provided by your profile are
set up to allow *stable* python2.7 and python3.2 to work properly.
~arch users are expected to read the docs. ^_^