[gentoo-dev] Re: News item: World file handling changes in Portage-2.2

[Duncan]

Joe Peterson <lavajoe@g.o> posted 48AB3EE7.3080000@g.o,
excerpted below, on  Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:45:11 -0600:

> Ah, OK.  I have been considering that "world" is simply a grandfathered
> name for "@world" (and same for system).  I.e. that "world" is also
> specifying the world set, but that only world and system are allowed to
> have the "@" dropped to avoid breaking things for users.  Isn't that the
> way the code treats it now?

I believe that's the way it is now, yes.  Thus what we're proposing would 
simply keep the legacy meaning for world (and system) as they are, while 
@world (and @system) would refer to the specific sets.

Now that it has been suggested, I do believe that's the simplest way to 
handle it, since it would involve no change at all for the existing 
words.  @system would of course be the same as system, but there'd be a 
slight difference between world and @world.  I think that's still less 
confusing, however, because people who don't care about the new 
functionality wouldn't have to worry about it, while for those that do, 
world could be simply explained as a legacy special-case.  Since the only 
people worried about the difference between world and @world would be by 
definition the folks learning the new functionality anyway, that single 
legacy corner-case, once documented, shouldn't be a big deal.  People 
learning @world can be told not to worry about the world case anyway, and 
just remember that sets always get @, and they're @world view (hehe, 
punny!) will once again be consistent.

But I'm not one of the portage devs implementing it, so I'm not the one 
making the rules how the implementation should work. Someone (or ones, 
plural, yes I know someones isn't a valid plural, but anyway) else gets 
to decide all that.  =8^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman