Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Sets vs Meta ebuilds

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 19:24:46 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
>
> I don't see why a package manager couldn't offer the same
> functionality for a meta package.  As was pointed out the set behavior
> for unmerging isn't always desirable.

Your missing that sets maybe made by the user, Making a meta ebuild is
a bit more complex then dropping package names into a file for a set,
no digest, etc. Sets seem to serve a different purpose.

With regard to unmerging not being desirable. That is if someone does
something stupid like putting a system package into a set. But as I
mentioned that the package is part of another set, system or world. It
would be pulled back into the system.

There are warnings and other stuff that take place when a critical
package is removed. A user can remove those now just as they could if
they added it to a set. Which really makes that argument moot.

Do dumb stuff, you will get undesired results. Like removing a system
package, via any means, set, directly, meta dep, etc.

> >
> > world and system are sets we all have. Not sure about PMS. It is
> > something portage has supported for some time. You likely have many
> > sets already on your system
>
> Certainly.  You just can't depend on them and so on without having
> them in PMS, because portage isn't the only package manager we
> "support."

Not sure about other package managers, but I would think they have
similar function. If not then anything listed under emerge --list-sets,
would be portage specific. That would likely break other things.

> It just strikes me that we're probably better off picking one way of
> doing this and putting lots of support behind it, versus having two
> ways of doing this and some features work with one but not the other.
> Of the two meta packages seem like they're the most generic.

The two ways are not the same, and there is a reason sets exist in the
first place. People seem to be over looking that fact. I did not add
sets. They are not new.  I am simply trying to expand their use.

If someone wants to "try" out some packages a set is an ideal way of
doing such. If someone wants a subset of what is in a meta ebuild.
Again a set is an ideal way to do that.  If for no other reason, then
if the user wants to remove them. They just emerge -C @my_set.

I find sets very useful! Only limitation is the profile aspect.

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.