On 18 December 2011 11:37, Joel Rosdahl <j...@debian.org> wrote: > On 2011-08-25 07:41, Reuben Thomas wrote: >> For the majority of users of ccache, it would be nice if installing it >> simply installed alternatives symlinks for gcc, so that no user >> configuration is necessary. > > While I can understand the wish for this, my opinion is that enabling > ccache by default is not a good idea. It should be up to the user to > make an informed choice to enable ccache, so that the user has the > responsibility of setting it up correctly and learning about potential > pitfalls. ccache has too many known and unknown ways of altering the > build result in edge cases to be enabled by default.
I agree with all of the above, but why not s/enable/install/? The same applies to many tools the user can install: they change the system works in subtle ways (e.g. a firewall), and Debian switches them on by default when installed. If the user doesn't want that behaviour, normally the solution is not to install the package. In some less usual cases (advanced user, multi-user machine), the user may want to change the behaviour of the package (which is also possible). With ccache, that could perhaps be achieved by having it provide an /etc/alternative for gcc which has higher priority than gcc; a user who wants normal gcc to take precedence can simply set alternatives manually. For what it's worth, my own experience was "read about ccache, install it, configure it, use it". I have never found a pitfall, and I have not learned about any pitfalls. I would quite happily avoid the "configure it" step, since it didn't teach me anything, it merely wasted my time (and in fact I had to do it more than once). I do not doubt there are pitfalls; I merely observe that ccache's default install did not teach me anything about them. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
