| 1 |
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:13:11 -0800 |
| 2 |
Matt Turner <mattst88@g.o> wrote: |
| 3 |
|
| 4 |
> The long tail of packages were packages that by definition didn't |
| 5 |
> require any maintenance or add to our collective cognitive overhead. |
| 6 |
> :) |
| 7 |
|
| 8 |
In some cases, they "didn't require maintenance" because nobody was |
| 9 |
using them. |
| 10 |
|
| 11 |
And because nobody was using them, nobody realised they were broken. |
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
Subsequently, the "has old EAPI" is a good indicator in some cases of |
| 14 |
"this package has not seen love in a while, and is probably broken" |
| 15 |
|
| 16 |
Revisiting old packages like this root out real problems, like "oh, |
| 17 |
this is so broken, it silently installed but didn't run at all for 3 |
| 18 |
years...." |
| 19 |
|
| 20 |
Which won't become apparent until some poor user attempts to use it, |
| 21 |
and at that point, you *hope* they file a bug. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
So the resulting re-stabilization ends up forcibly expanding the test |
| 24 |
audience, reaffirming "this package that nobody has glanced at for 5+ |
| 25 |
years still works on every platform we said it did", which is probably |
| 26 |
an important thing to be able to state when a package is deemed |
| 27 |
'stable'. |
Archives