Re: [gentoo-dev] What to do with people who use internal eclass functions?

[Kent Fredric]

On 26 August 2013 19:38, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:

> Hello, all.
>
> I've noticed that some people are using internal eclass functions
> in their ebuilds. I mean, functions that are explicitly marked
> @INTERNAL and that start with an underscore. What should I do to them?
>
>
Not sure if this is a warnings/error category yet, but imo, repoman should
at least warn about this if at all possible.


> I would expect that Gentoo developers are professionals. Or at least
> semi-reasonable people. Yet it seems that I was mistaken.
>

Sometimes in the case of "I accept my code will be broken in the future",
then its somewhat acceptable by proxy to use internal functions. Though
granted, if this is in an ebuild, then that ebuild should not be stabilized
imo.


> We were never pinged about the internal function use. Nobody bothered
> to ask us why the function is internal and what they should they use
> instead. I guess it was the usual 'it works, i don't care' case.
>
> What should I do now? Mask the ebuild? Proceed with changing
> the function and break it?
>

I would consider that acceptable, because an ebuild that uses an internal
function, is something I would consider "already broken", as using an
internal function is acknowledging an inevitable breakage will occur.


> Or maybe do we need to have GPG signature verification of bash
> tracebacks in every internal function to prevent developers from using
> those?
>



> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
>



-- 
Kent

perl -e  "print substr( \"edrgmaM  SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\", \$_ * 3, 3 )
for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );"

http://kent-fredric.fox.geek.nz