Re: [gentoo-dev] Reverse use of Python/Ruby versions

[Alan McKinnon]

On 10/04/2017 19:58, Christopher Head wrote:
> On April 9, 2017 7:04:13 PM PDT, "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt-ml@××××××.com> wrote:
>> The present system is a PITA for users. Fiddling with adding/removing
>> targets for Python/Ruby.
>
> As an ordinary user, that does sound like a real annoyance. As an ordinary user, I also never do it. I don’t have any targets set by hand. I probably never will. And yes, I do some Python development myself (not much packaging but “using” Python in the sense of writing Python code). I find the Python experience largely painless: I currently have 2.7.12 and 3.4.5 installed. Eventually 3.5 will get installed and 3.4 will go away. Just like every other package. I won’t need to do any config file editing, just a revdep-rebuild run perhaps. So regardless of the situation for maintainers, as a user, I don’t see this pain.
>


As another regular user, you most definitely will see this pain if you
need to deviate from your profile defaults for python.

I'm like you - use lots of python, package some, write some. I also
don't go past the current ~arch python-3 because I have a good sense of
what waits for me if I do.

That you and I don't suffer too much breakage at all since years now is
a testament that *someone* is touching all those ebuilds when they need
to be touched, that they are managing to do it without much visible
fallout is a minor engineering miracle or sheer hard work.

I think William has a point; sometimes making a criteria a negative one
result in a lot less work. A good survey usually gives numbers that let
you tell if it will.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com