Hi,

Andrew D Kirch <trel...@trelane.net>:

> Ryan Hill wrote:
> > On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:29:12 -0700
> > Chip Parker <infowo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> If you were building a house, and the blueprints had been signed
> >> off on calling for 1 meter high doors, but the builder had built
> >> in 2 meter high doors, would you then go back to the builder and
> >> require him to do something that makes those doors unusable for
> >> the vast majority of people entering the house?
> >>     
> >
> > Package managers can implement whatever extra bells and whistles
> > they like, but they still have to follow the spec.  Your metaphor
> > is flawed in that you're talking about a single house here.  If it
> > doesn't match the plan you do an as-built and file a deviation with
> > the registrar.  The situation here is more like if you build a
> > hundred houses to code, and then one above code, and then change
> > code to match the one house and bulldoze the rest for not meeting
> > minimal requirements.  You're punishing anyone who implements a
> > package manager to spec if you keep changing the spec in
> > incompatible ways. 
> Right, this is called "punishing innovation".  It's a hobby of
> bureaucrats everywhere.
> It could also be said to be "punishing excellence".  We've had a lot
> of political systems
> which try to implement a design which weeds out both the mediocre, and
> the excellent,
> leaving us with the average all have been failures.   The reason why
> they fail is that it is
> the above average who do the heaviest lifting.

 The ebuild format has seen no progress in a long time, because an
intrusive change needed an update to the tree and the package manager
at the same moment and a push to users.  This was near to impossible
for most interesting features.  The EAPI process may be a bit
bureaucratic (it is open to anyone interested), but it ensures progress
at all.  How long did people want USE dependencies?  That's bug 2272
from April 2002!  It has been closed in June last year.

V-Li

(Portage user and having had clashes with Ciaran, but where he is
correct one has to admit it)

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://gentoo.faulhammer.org/>

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