Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [RFC] Drop EAPI=0 requirement for system packages.

[Pacho Ramos]

El sáb, 20-10-2012 a las 16:09 +0200, Thomas Sachau escribió:
> Pacho Ramos schrieb:
> > El vie, 19-10-2012 a las 22:39 +0200, Thomas Sachau escribió:
> >> Pacho Ramos schrieb:
> >>> El vie, 19-10-2012 a las 21:43 +0200, Thomas Sachau escribió:
> >>>> Pacho Ramos schrieb:
> >>>>> I volunteer to do whatever conversions you want for every ebuild I find
> >>>>> if I have time... what prevents me from doing it is to commit that
> >>>>> changes to ebuilds not maintained by me and not knowing if developers
> >>>>> agree on using latest eapi if possible. A more general solution (or
> >>>>> policy) needs to be worked as, otherwise, tree won't be moved to latest
> >>>>> eapi ever because we would need to:
> >>>>> - Periodically send bugs + patches
> >>>>> - Ask for permission to commit
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And that for every eapi bump
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Either an ebuild has a responsive maintainer, which you can ask friendly
> >>>> to bump the EAPI because of feature X you would like to use or there is
> >>>> no maintainer, in which case you are free to touch/bump or last rite the
> >>>> ebuild.
> >>>>
> >>>> So i still dont see any need or requirement for a policy to
> >>>> force/require all devs to always use or switch to the latest avaidable
> >>>> EAPI. As already written in this thread, it would just mean less new
> >>>> ebuilds and less version bumps with such a policy. And i also prefer
> >>>> more work done with older EAPI versions around then less ebuilds/new
> >>>> versions with latest EAPI.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Seriously, what people is still having problems with handling eapi4? If
> >>> there are doubts about its usage, they should be asked and resolved
> >>> instead of ignored keeping ebuilds with older eapis. The only eapi that
> >>> probably adds no advantage for a lot of ebuilds is eapi3, but that is
> >>> not the case for eapi4 for example, that includes changes that should be
> >>> incorporated by most packages in the tree, some of them introduced by it
> >>> and others inherited from older eapis.
> >>>
> >>> What is the advantage of using eapi2 over eapi4 for example? What "hard
> >>> to learn" change was included in eapi4 over eapi2?
> >>>
> >>
> >> This is not about "having problems with handling eapi-X", this is just
> >> about limited time and the choice where to spend that time. If you do
> >> just a version bump, you often dont have to touch the ebuild at all,
> >> just copy, test, commit and be happy. If you additionally require an
> >> EAPI bump, this means to carefully check the ebuild, adjust it to the
> >> new EAPI and additionally check, that the expected haviour is also the
> >> one that happens. While doing this, i could also have fixed another bug
> >> or have done another version bump. And that was already expressed in my
> >> first response. I nowhere claimed to have problems with EAPI bumps, just
> >> that they require additional time, so reducing the amount of time left
> >> to create new ebuilds/fix bugs/do version bumps. And with the choice, i
> >> prefer the new ebuilds/fixed bugs/version bumps over an ebuild switched
> >> to a new EAPI.
> >>
> >> So my question to you: What is the advantage of using ${NEW_EAPI} over
> >> using ${OLDER_EAPI}, when the ebuild does the same and the result is the
> >> same?
> >>
> >
> > I already explained the advantages, simply take a look to:
> > http://devmanual.gentoo.org/ebuild-writing/eapi/index.html
> >
> > to see that, for example, --disable-dependency-tracking won't be used by
> > default for older eapis. The same will occur with eapi5 and
> > --disable-silent-rules or running tests in parallel.
> >
> > That time you think you are saving, will be need to be lost if, for
> > example, some QA policy appears in the future to move to try to run
> > tests in parallel when possible, or force verbose output.
> >
>
> Please remember, that not every package out there does use an autotools
> based build system, we also have custom configure scripts, custom
> makefiles, things like cmake, qmake or even completly different things
> like ant based build systems for java. All those build systems wont
> benefit neither from --disable-dependency-tracking nor from
> --disable-silent-rules.
>
> Also, as already pointed out, a package, which currently exists may be
> unmaintained and useless in the future, so if i dont do the work now and
> remove the then unneeded package later, i did not spend any additional
> time for this change. Your requirement would either mean wasted time or
> another open bug until the package gets removed.

If the package is unmaintained it won't probably have a revision bump
and, then, eapi won't change, if any other needs to fix another bug and
also bumps eapi, that package will be enhanced, that is what really
matters. If it's broke because dev bumping it failed to bump the eapi,
lets fix it (or ask for help) to prevent him from doing that error
again. All are gains: package is improved and developer learns how to
handle new eapi

>
> Beside that, i did ask you about the case, where "the ebuild does the
> same and the result is the same". And you did not answer my question,
> why an EAPI-bump in such cases should be done.

What about the huge number of packages that would benefit from the bump?
Why ignore them because a few packages won't benefit. Think in changes
like src_configure phase addition, that most packages with benefit from
it. Also, this is not about blindly forcing people to use latest eapi
without even evaluating what improvements they have, this is about, for
example, forcing packages to use eapi4 because it includes a ton of
enhancements from eapi0 that most packages would benefit from.

>
> And finally, as already pointed out by Rich, you should not talk about
> any specific EAPI you like/prefer/want to be used everyhwere, but
> instead about the issue you want to solve. So just point out the issue
> and ask the maintainer to fix it. If he uses a newer EAPI, good. If he
> uses another solution, which also fixes the issue, also good. We should
> not discuss about a specific way to solve some issues, since this is the
> maintainers choice. Our goal should instead be to fix as many issues as
> possible with our limited amount of time we have for Gentoo.
>
>

I have already pointed multiple examples where bumping eapi will help to
improve things, not doing so because of that hypothetical problems you
think could occur only leads us to current situation: a ton of autotools
packages won't get --disable-silent-rules/--disable-dependency-tracking
improvements because people doesn't even try to bump eapi, some more
packages will hide utilities failing but not dying because of using old
eapis, inconsistent blockers handling around the tree due using
different eapis, packages still relying on dying in pkg_setup instead of
setting proper USE deps, packages still using dohard and dosed, html
files in /usr/share/doc being compressed because of old eapi usage, I
even noticed past week a package still using ebeep.