foser wrote: <snip>
You are trying to inhibit complexity when it is an essential requirement of what is trying to be done. Giving the user the choice in maintaining their system in the manner that they prefer is the goal here. That goal IS inherently complex. The user has a lot of choices. Removing those choices because you feel there are too many and the users are overloading is just silly. How many people do you know really complain about how there are too many USE flags? As Gentoo grows and more applications and USE flags are added the complexity will get worse. Gentoo will grow with it as well, developing the tools necessary to manage such complexity. Right now we have ufed, profuse, and emerge -pv to aid with use flags ( and probably others I haven't heard of ). There is a GLEP for use flag groups, and if that makes it into portage a ton of the USE flag complexity can be abstracted away. Don't remove choice to make things simple. Develop the tools necessary to manage the inherent complexity of the problem we are trying to solve here.
Would you rather have 3k of USE flags you can't deal with to begin with. Increasing USE flags to no end is at least as much choice inhibiting as restricting some choice. USE flags are a strong point of Gentoo, but it's actually getting weaker and weaker all the time.
I'm sorry for the critical tone here, but USE flags are one of Gentoo's killer features, and I don't understand the mindset of the camp who see them as something that Gentoo can do without. They need improving to make them scale easier, sure, but the idea behind them is a GoodThing(tm).
You misunderstand the goals of this 'camp' I think. The line of thought is more that USE flags are getting abused for things they weren't meant for. I personally believe this particular one is one of them.
- foser
-- Alec Warner Spartasoft Secretary ( spartasoft.msu.edu ) Junior Computer Science Michigan State University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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