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On 09/12/2015 01:52 AM, Daniel Campbell wrote: |
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> On 09/11/2015 01:34 PM, hasufell wrote: |
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>> I already use IUSE=gui and will keep doing that. |
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> |
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>> USE flags in gentoo are the best and the worst thing at the same |
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>> time. They are also mostly the main reason people don't like |
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>> gentoo, because USE flags are (for todays situation) pretty much |
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>> not an appropriate pattern to reflect real-world configuration. To |
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>> be more precise... USE flags are first-class citizens and there is |
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>> only one layer of them. There's not configuration |
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>> pattern/abstraction behind them. If you wonder what I am talking |
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>> about, have a look at NixOS. The reason we lack proper declarative |
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>> configuration is also the reason we had to introduce this ugliness |
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>> called REQUIRED_USE. Instead of saying "gui.gtk" we say |
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>> "REQUIRED_USE="gui? ( || ( gtk ... ) )". And it will get worse. I |
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>> wonder when people start realizing that. |
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> |
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> |
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> So are you suggesting maybe we come up with namespaced USE flags? That |
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> would be interesting. |
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> |
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I'm not sure we can do that without breaking gentoo. At least, it would |
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be a _huge_ EAPI change. |
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It would require a lot of PM work, would break our configuration format |
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(if you want to do it properly) and probably have other side effects for |
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running systems. |
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And if you have followed NixOS development... you know that you can |
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screw this up as well, because consistency is even more important if you |
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really want declarative configuration. And I'm not sure there is enough |
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interest in consistency in gentoo. People seem to be fine with micro |
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managing USE flags in order to achieve a particular configuration state |
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which can break arbitrarily on any update. |
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