>> POLA is inherently subjective; what astonishes one person might be exactly >> what another person expects. In this particular case, while someone might >> indeed be astonished that "forcibly delete everything" deletes everything, >> someone else could well be astonished if "pkg delete -f clang" doesn't in >> fact delete clang. > > Not really. So far "the FreeBSD standard" kept things "similar" for > over 30 years. If we traveled back/forward in time we would still use > the same approach to configure and run stuff. Maybe except pkg-add was > replaced with pkg, but still all locations are the same, configuration > files format, ports build, etc. "Base" is the cornerstone of FreeBSD > and its most widely known unique feature. It is like coming back to > familiar stable work place, where all things does not change on a > daily basis, or going to a different place and having the same > familiar setup with nothing missing. There was always clear separation > of "base system" and "userland". This meant all FreeBSD base release > X.Y would have exactly the same predictable behavior for everyone.
FreeBSD-user since 2.0 here. I've gotten used to the FreeBSD package system, and quite like it. Regarding this discussion: - It's important to have a clean separation between the base system (whether that is installed using the package system or not) and the rest. An easy way to list "these are the base system packages" is absolutely needed. - I see no problem with packages from ports depending on packages from the base system, since packages from ports already depend on the base system today. The other way around, having the base system depend on packages from ports, would be a problem! - Maybe there should be an extra step if you try to delete packages from the base system? I'm no great fan of "Are you sure" prompts all over the place, this is just some food for thought. - In any case, if you do any variant of "pkg delete -f" you are explicitly saying "I want to *force* this delete", and shooting yourself in the foot should be allowed. Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sth...@nethelp.no
