* Philip Brown <ppb at usc.edu> [2007-10-24 20:42]: > Lukas Rovensky wrote: > > One more question from the maintenance point of view. The pkg(1) makes > > possible to freeze a package at a specified version to stop update > > flows. Currently this is decided by the user to use this constraint.
> > Danek Duvall wrote: > >> ...... > >> In addition, because of the "no dim sum patching" rule, .... > > I would like to point out, that the capability, and the rule, mentioned > above (amusingly, in the same email), are to my viewpoint, directly in > conflict with each other. > > The concept of allowing a user to freeze a package a particular > version, is in essence, an anti-patch. (ie: instead of patching "up", > it is patching "down") > > To me, it is just another variant of "dim-sum patching" In its strictest form, a fully-specified constraint that includes the full version and timestamp could be seen as some kind of opposite to a patch. Of course, it's not the same, as dependencies that require a version of the package newer than the constrained version will fail, and a system will end up on a version surface that lags the most recent updates. However, constraints needn't be so strict: a constraint can say, keep me on this branch component, to this significance, and similarly for the version. So a constraint allows me access to newer software, but along a path that I control (by limiting the scope of change). Since the constraints and dependencies are tied together, the combinatorics are significantly reduced from those available from the current library of patches. - Stephen -- sch at sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/sch/
