Re: [gentoo-council] Preliminary Meeting-Topics for 12 February 2009

[Peter Volkov]

Filename extension is a "suffix to the name of a computer file, designed
to show its format" (-- wikipedia). General format of ebuilds is bash.
Putting version of bash scripts inside filename extension just breaks
common convention people got accustomed to.

В Чтв, 19/02/2009 в 12:51 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh пишет:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:06:01 +0300
> Peter Volkov <pva@g.o> wrote:
> > If you and think that EAPI is meta-information then it should not be
> > inside file name and then it's possible to parse ebuild and get EAPI
> > from some defined-format line. Performance penalties can be mitigated
> > by some new caching (you know better than me that it's good idea to
> > re-implement caching in any case).
>
> The only thing that can parse ebuilds is bash, and it can only do that
> once it already knows the EAPI.

You don't need to parse full bash script. You just need to get

EAPI="something"

string from there. If you wish to implement new ebuild format, e.g.
ebuilds in xml, in such a case you'll change extension on .xebuild or
whatever suits better.

> Another cache won't solve anything since there's no way to generate
> that cache to begin with -- and a second level of cache would slow
> things down, not speed them up.

I told about caching just to avoid "it's slow to get EAPI from ebuild"
argument.

> Because all the alternatives are worse, and none of the objections to
> the extension have been technical in nature. They've all been "we don't
> want you to apply anti-mould paint to the rotting bikeshed because it's
> only available in brown".

If by technical objection you mean 'explanation why technically it's
impossible or bad to implement .eapi extensions' I agree with you. It is
possible to code it and it will work. But ... again. Statement is:

Filename extension is a "suffix to the name of a computer file, designed
to show its format". General format of ebuilds is bash. Putting version
of bash scripts inside filename extension just breaks common convention
people got accustomed to. Although this is not a technical objection it
is not unimportant. Even color is important if your are talking about
things people will see/use on daily basis. I doubt you'll paint your
room in violet only because you can easy get this paint right now.

That said, technically there are other solutions for this problem, e.g.
1) it is possible to read one line of defined format from any file 2) it
is possible to make eapi inside ebuild name (foo-1.0-eapi2.ebuild), but
not as extension. Any solution, even breaking compatibility solution, we
could already start using if we had forgotten about GLEP 55 long time
ago...

Putting GLEP 55 infinite number of times on council agenda makes me feel
that this issue has something common with perpetuum mobile. At least I'd
like similar resolution from our council as the Royal Academy of
Sciences in Paris did in 1775. It's hard to tell anything new about GLEP
55 but people still don't like it, so, council, please, ban it forever
and let something else arise.

-- 
Peter.