[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Ciaran McCreesh posted on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:38:33 +0100 as excerpted: On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 09:53:37 +0200 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org wrote: Don't you see this way of handling things, with such and obscure way of getting things accepted for every EAPI is really hurting us? What is hurting is people demanding features without specifying what the problem is, how it will be solved or what the impact on users or developers will be, and then taking up everyone's time with complaints when they don't get magical flying unicorns instantly. If you want something, you either have to do the work yourself, or find someone to do it. And here's the thing: you're assuming that the work is trivial, which for some of the things you're discussing it really isn't. The PMS wording is the trivial bit that comes at the end once the problem and solution have been worked out. Without weighing in on either side of the technical details of this debate, it's possible to observe two things: 1) Fact: Unfortunately, your method of argument, Ciaran, doesn't endear you to a number of devs. Some may have the impulse to reject an argument simply because it comes from you. 2) PMS is supposed to be about specifying things well enough that all three PMs can implement compatible ebuild/eclass/etc interpretation and execution. 3) Given the above, it would be of /great/ benefit to your argument if either Zac or Brian (or preferably both) stepped up from time to time and said yes, this is really an issue. Not that they'd necessarily reply to everything you do, but if they could reply once in support, such that you could refer people back to those replies from elsewhere... This would be of particular help concerning the multi-arch work where there's already an implementation for portage, but it is argued a proper spec is still lacking. Obviously if it's approved Brian's going to need to implement it as well as you, and having him too say there's not enough there to do so, ideally with his estimation of where the process is in terms of work needed, as well, would go quite a long way. Similarly but from a different angle, if Zac says that he's not satisfied with the specification even with portage's already implementing what's there and having it proven to work (for whatever definition of work), that goes quite a way toward giving the argument for a better spec some serious support, as well. If you can't get those statements, then round and round the discussion will go until people are sick, and until people simply ignore your position and push /something/ thru, which would be a real shame if it could be practically[1] made better, or the practical ideal of PMS ends up getting lost in the results. And if you /can/ get those statements, why are we still going round and round with all this? (Again, references to said statements may be necessary from time to time, given the quantity of posts and the likelihood single answers in support of your position could be missed.) [1] Practically: favorable cost/benefit ratio for the work needed. -- 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
[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Duncan posted on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:37:38 + as excerpted: Ciaran McCreesh posted on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:38:33 +0100 as excerpted: 3) Given the above, it would be of /great/ benefit to your argument if either Zac or Brian (or preferably both) stepped up from time to time and said yes, this is really an issue. Not that they'd necessarily reply to everything you do, but if they could reply once in support, such that you could refer people back to those replies from elsewhere... Right after posting that, I saw you mentioned the link below. Thanks. That's exactly the sort of thing I think a lot of readers (myself included) could use a bit more of, reminding us it's not just you. http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_86b67d8ab51a24922a3d3be75d10f42b.xml -- 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
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:37:38 + (UTC) Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net wrote: 1) Fact: Unfortunately, your method of argument, Ciaran, doesn't endear you to a number of devs. Some may have the impulse to reject an argument simply because it comes from you. Perhaps Gentoo should be doing more to correct the attitudes of those developers, then. 2) PMS is supposed to be about specifying things well enough that all three PMs can implement compatible ebuild/eclass/etc interpretation and execution. Not exactly. It's about making sure ebuild developers know what they can rely upon from a package mangler. 3) Given the above, it would be of /great/ benefit to your argument if either Zac or Brian (or preferably both) stepped up from time to time and said yes, this is really an issue. They already have. For example: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_86b67d8ab51a24922a3d3be75d10f42b.xml And if you /can/ get those statements, why are we still going round and round with all this? That's a very good question. Why are people still blaming the PMS team for the lack of magical appearance of flying unicorns rather than making their case for the introduction of a horse? -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Ciaran McCreesh ciaran.mccre...@googlemail.com wrote: On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:37:38 + (UTC) Duncan 1i5t5.dun...@cox.net wrote: 1) Fact: Unfortunately, your method of argument, Ciaran, doesn't endear you to a number of devs. Some may have the impulse to reject an argument simply because it comes from you. Perhaps Gentoo should be doing more to correct the attitudes of those developers, then. This is an impression that many people get, unfortunately. You can't fix it by beating people up. There are those who speak up from time to time attempting to moderate, although to some extent this is noise in what should be a technical discussion. And if you /can/ get those statements, why are we still going round and round with all this? That's a very good question. Why are people still blaming the PMS team for the lack of magical appearance of flying unicorns rather than making their case for the introduction of a horse? Perhaps what is being missed is that THIS ISN'T A WATERFALL METHODOLOGY!!! PMS is intended to be semi-retrospective - it is developed in parallel with the features it documents. It is intended to preserve standards, to be something to refer to before finalizing PM code, and to guide ebuild writers. It isn't intended to be a conceptual requirements/design spec to be included in the RFP for the coding team in India. So, the requirement is a reference implementation in one of the PMs. So, the question of who gets to decide it is easy is simple - whoever writes and releases the patch gets to decide. That can be you if you write a full PM that handles all the existing EAPIs plus whatever is new, or demonstrate some kind of commitment to maintaining a fork. Face it, there are only a handful of devs here doing PM work, portage or otherwise. I can post all day on the list about how Gentoo OUGHT to be able to do foo. I can post all day about how Gentoo NEEDS to do foo and how it is downright obvious how not doing foo ruins the reputation of Gentoo and is going to kill us in six months. None of this is going to do anything unless I can convince/bribe/cajole one of the devs working on a PM to implement foo, or, heaven-forbid, write it myself. Somebody asked earlier why Cirian is running the whole PMS process and why Gentoo can't have its own GEAPI that will be peaceful and harmonious. My answers to that are twofold: 1. While perhaps a different leader might give people a warmer feeling about it, I think many of these issues are just inherent to the nature of the problem - PM features don't write themselves. Others might disagree, and that is fine. 2. I don't see anybody else stepping up. PMS is in git, so just clone the thing and if you can convince some PM devs to follow you there is no reason that a Gentoo dev couldn't take it over. I suspect that many would like to see this happen. However, to be honest I think that warm-and-fuzzies aside Cirian has actually done a fairly good job with it as he is pretty passionate about PM specs. This is a big commitment, and what isn't needed is somebody who is going to step in to get their favorite feature in there and then let it die. As far as helping others to create pms paperwork goes, there is no reason this has to fall exclusively on Cirian. The fact that nobody else is stepping up to help those who are new just reflects the nature of something like this - FOSS projects tend to be weak on specs. Bottom line - do I think Cirian might get himself further in life if he deals with others a bit differently? Sure. Do I think that this is the main thing keeping us outside of the golden land of PMS? Not really. Rich
[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Rich Freeman posted on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 07:12:29 -0400 as excerpted: You can't fix it by beating people up. Volunteers do it on their own terms... or don't do it. The outliers can be moderated to some degree and thankfully the list isn't what it once was, but get too strict and people simply find other things to do. Of course there's a line where letting them find something else to do is best, and some have crossed it, but... 1. While perhaps a different leader might give people a warmer feeling about it, I think many of these issues are just inherent to the nature of the problem - PM features don't write themselves. Others might disagree, and that is fine. 2. I don't see anybody else stepping up. Good points. (Whole post actually, but snipped for brevity.) To some extent, the job of coordinating PMS is going to be a (nearly) thankless task, and it does take a specific kind of person to keep at it. Not everybody's cut out for it. You're right, others /aren't/ stepping up for it and I can't blame them. Thanks for pointing out what we likely all knew if we thought about it, but many (me included) sometimes forget. Back to my original point, tho. Seeing people working on other PMs make the point as well, helps, and I hope to see both a bit more of that and more reminders of it in other subthreads/replies, where appropriate. I know that helps me keep a bit better perspective. =:^) -- 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
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On 22 June 2012 08:38, Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: Would you (or someone else) elaborate on the specific features of bash that people find attractive? For me, it is mostly [[ ]] tests, arrays and brace expansion. The += operator is also very nice to have. -- Cheers, Ben | yngwin Gentoo developer Gentoo Qt project lead
[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Richard Yao posted on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:50:33 -0400 as excerpted: On 06/20/2012 04:35 PM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:25:30 -0400 Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: POSIX Shell compliance So far as I know, every PM relies heavily upon bash anyway (and can't easily be made not to), so even if developers would accept having to rewrite all their eclasses, it still wouldn't remove the dep. Lets address POSIX compliance in the ebuilds first. Then we can deal with the package managers. Additionally, this is extremely unlikely because a number of developers insist on bash, to the extent that it would likely split gentoo in half if this were to be forced. It wouldn't pass council. It's unlikely to even /get/ to council. Openrc could move to POSIX shell because its primary dev at the time wanted it that way and it's only a single package. However, even then, doing it was controversial enough that said developer ended up leaving gentoo in-part over that, tho he did continue to develop openrc as a gentoo hosted project for quite some years. Now you're talking trying to do it for /every/ (well, almost every) package, thus touching every single gentoo dev. It's just not going to happen in even the medium term (say for argument APIs 5-7ish), let alone be something practical enough to implement, soon enough (even if everyone agreed on the general idea, they don't), to be anything like conceivable for EAPI5. So just let that one be. It's simply not worth tilting at that windmill. (Arguably, multi-arch, while practical and actually working at least with portage in an overlay, fails that last bit as well. If it was pushed, perhaps for EAPI6 or 7, but it's just not practical to consider it for EAPI5... unless you want to wait 3-5 years for EAPI5!) -- 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
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On 06/21/2012 04:29 AM, Duncan wrote: Richard Yao posted on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:50:33 -0400 as excerpted: On 06/20/2012 04:35 PM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:25:30 -0400 Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: POSIX Shell compliance So far as I know, every PM relies heavily upon bash anyway (and can't easily be made not to), so even if developers would accept having to rewrite all their eclasses, it still wouldn't remove the dep. Lets address POSIX compliance in the ebuilds first. Then we can deal with the package managers. Additionally, this is extremely unlikely because a number of developers insist on bash, to the extent that it would likely split gentoo in half if this were to be forced. It wouldn't pass council. It's unlikely to even /get/ to council. Openrc could move to POSIX shell because its primary dev at the time wanted it that way and it's only a single package. However, even then, doing it was controversial enough that said developer ended up leaving gentoo in-part over that, tho he did continue to develop openrc as a gentoo hosted project for quite some years. Now you're talking trying to do it for /every/ (well, almost every) package, thus touching every single gentoo dev. It's just not going to happen in even the medium term (say for argument APIs 5-7ish), let alone be something practical enough to implement, soon enough (even if everyone agreed on the general idea, they don't), to be anything like conceivable for EAPI5. So just let that one be. It's simply not worth tilting at that windmill. (Arguably, multi-arch, while practical and actually working at least with portage in an overlay, fails that last bit as well. If it was pushed, perhaps for EAPI6 or 7, but it's just not practical to consider it for EAPI5... unless you want to wait 3-5 years for EAPI5!) It is just a wish list. Anyway, people need to decide on what they want from a new EAPI before one is made. Once they decide, it should be possible to work out the details.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On 06/21/2012 04:29 AM, Duncan wrote: Richard Yao posted on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:50:33 -0400 as excerpted: On 06/20/2012 04:35 PM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:25:30 -0400 Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: POSIX Shell compliance So far as I know, every PM relies heavily upon bash anyway (and can't easily be made not to), so even if developers would accept having to rewrite all their eclasses, it still wouldn't remove the dep. Lets address POSIX compliance in the ebuilds first. Then we can deal with the package managers. Additionally, this is extremely unlikely because a number of developers insist on bash, to the extent that it would likely split gentoo in half if this were to be forced. It wouldn't pass council. It's unlikely to even /get/ to council. Openrc could move to POSIX shell because its primary dev at the time wanted it that way and it's only a single package. However, even then, doing it was controversial enough that said developer ended up leaving gentoo in-part over that, tho he did continue to develop openrc as a gentoo hosted project for quite some years. Now you're talking trying to do it for /every/ (well, almost every) package, thus touching every single gentoo dev. It's just not going to happen in even the medium term (say for argument APIs 5-7ish), let alone be something practical enough to implement, soon enough (even if everyone agreed on the general idea, they don't), to be anything like conceivable for EAPI5. So just let that one be. It's simply not worth tilting at that windmill. Would you (or someone else) elaborate on the specific features of bash that people find attractive?
[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Richard Yao posted on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:38:17 -0400 as excerpted: Would you (or someone else) elaborate on the specific features of bash that people find attractive? For me (not a gentoo dev), in simplest terms it's just that I don't like having to keep track of what's a bashism and what's POSIX. If individual devs prefer POSIX code, they can certainly write ebuilds (or a 4th gentoo package manager for that matter) in all POSIX, but there's enough devs that for /whatever/ reason strongly prefer bash, where strongly is ultimately defined as if it's redefined to POSIX, there's a lot of other projects I can spend my time on instead, that won't force me into jumping thru those hoops, and that fact is widely enough known, that it's unlikely in the extreme. But to give you a example I've seen on this list (one of the few bits I know isn't POSIX)... Many people appreciate the advantages of [[ tests, looser quoting, ==/=~ pattern matching tests, etc. -- 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
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
On Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:38:17 -0400 Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: On 06/21/2012 04:29 AM, Duncan wrote: Richard Yao posted on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:50:33 -0400 as excerpted: On 06/20/2012 04:35 PM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:25:30 -0400 Richard Yao r...@gentoo.org wrote: POSIX Shell compliance So far as I know, every PM relies heavily upon bash anyway (and can't easily be made not to), so even if developers would accept having to rewrite all their eclasses, it still wouldn't remove the dep. Lets address POSIX compliance in the ebuilds first. Then we can deal with the package managers. Additionally, this is extremely unlikely because a number of developers insist on bash, to the extent that it would likely split gentoo in half if this were to be forced. It wouldn't pass council. It's unlikely to even /get/ to council. Openrc could move to POSIX shell because its primary dev at the time wanted it that way and it's only a single package. However, even then, doing it was controversial enough that said developer ended up leaving gentoo in-part over that, tho he did continue to develop openrc as a gentoo hosted project for quite some years. Now you're talking trying to do it for /every/ (well, almost every) package, thus touching every single gentoo dev. It's just not going to happen in even the medium term (say for argument APIs 5-7ish), let alone be something practical enough to implement, soon enough (even if everyone agreed on the general idea, they don't), to be anything like conceivable for EAPI5. So just let that one be. It's simply not worth tilting at that windmill. Would you (or someone else) elaborate on the specific features of bash that people find attractive? Local variables, reasonable behavior (like 'FOO=abc bar' where bar is macro), arrays, [[ ]] tests (which are obviously faster than calling external test program). One more use: printing useful die messages (in POSIX sh there's no way to do a backtrace). -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
