Re: [gentoo-dev] eapi files and profiles

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:24:27 +0300
Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@g.o> wrote:
> So I was told Council needs to approve inheritance of eapi files from
> parent profiles?

As a full explanation of why this idea sucks, since some people have
asked:

You need to decide which way eapi inherits go. Are you saying that any
profile directory with a parent using EAPI X is itself EAPI X? If so,
the implications are:

* that we can't change the format of the parent file ever (and we have
  done so in the past)

* that it gets a lot harder to remove certain syntax in newer EAPIs.
  For example, say we want to replace =...* with ranged dependencies in
  EAPI 4. Then you can't change a profile directory to use EAPI 4
  without checking that everything that uses that directory doesn't
  make use of =...*.

Or are you saying that the package manager should use the eapi it picks
up for any parents it follows? If so, the implications are:

* that removing =...* in EAPI 4 (for example) becomes impossible,
  because it would be impossible to use that syntax in high level
  profiles that might be inherited by profiles using EAPI 4.

Either way, putting eapi files in any directory that itself
specifically needs it is a heck of a lot easier for everyone.

On top of that, if you do change it, there's the usual year wait before
you can use it, since current package managers don't inherit eapis.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh