Mike Gilbert posted on Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:55:10 -0500 as excerpted: > On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 5:10 PM, Alexander Hof <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Mike Gilbert wrote: >>> On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:27 AM, Michael Palimaka >>> <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> On 14/11/14 01:05, Michael Orlitzky wrote: >>>>> Isn't it possible to disable C++ in GCC with USE="-cxx"? >>>> >>>> It is, but I think if that's disabled you're on your own. :-) >>> >>> Perhaps we should add a package.use.force entry for this. Is there any >>> reason not to? >>> >>> >> There are people that don't want c++ and gcc:4.7 can still bootstrap >> without. >> >> > Those people "know what they are doing" and could un-force the use flag. > That would prevent people from accidentally disabling it via USE="-*". > > I'm not normally one to prevent people from shooting themselves, but in > this case the safety would be simple to toggle.
The problem is the precedent that sets. (Package.)use.force is the equivalent of "going nuke" and IMO it should be kept that way. ^^ TL;DR ^^ Overriding use.force (package or otherwise) should be clearly no-man's- land, something done only for stuff like cross-compiling, etc, so far out of gentoo support that normally nobody sane would ask for it under those conditions, and if they did, they'd clearly mention the conditions and explain why they thought the override was necessary and didn't affect whatever bug they were seeing. Use.forcing something isn't even /close/ to default-use, which can be and is routinely overridden by people (including me) who "know what they are doing" with USE=-*, and as soon as use.forcing something, and then overriding it, becomes normal and routine, then we'll need a "really force" option to override use.force, much like use.force was the "really force" option to override use-defaults. So I'd suggest (package.)use.forcing isn't appropriate with c++, because there /are/ legitimate reasons to unset it, as already discussed, and as soon as people start having to do that with the one flag, nobody user or dev in gentoo is going to be able to assume (package.)use.force isn't routinely overridden ever again. Again, then we'll need a (package.)use.force.really option, and the race will be on to (package.)use.force.yes.I.really.really.really.really.mean.it! -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
