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Simon Stelling wrote: |
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> Hi, |
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> |
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> Duncan wrote: |
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> |
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>>and see what's up, or one can visit the website and check it out there, |
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>>but for such a critical part of a Gentoo machine's infrastructure, one |
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>>would certainly wish for something a bit easier than either of these. |
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> |
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> |
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> Erm, is that a joke? You want an easier way than browsing to a web page |
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> and read? Why should portage go different ways than every other software |
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> project? |
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> |
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> |
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>>Expanding on the idea a bit further, what about creating a generic "emerge |
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>>changelog" function, that fetches the tarball if necessary, then extracts |
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>>only the changelog, and opens it for viewing (presumably using the $PAGER |
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>>environmental variable to determine what to display it with)? Naturally, |
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>>given Gentoo can't control the upstream changelog format, enforcing |
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>>parseability rules as it does for its own, the entire changelog would of |
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>>necessity be displayed, leaving the user to figure out the relevant |
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>>cutoffs instead of doing it automatically as emerge -pl does with the |
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>>portage tree changelogs, but it'd still be a rather easier way to view |
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>>upstream changelogs before installation (or for that matter, after) than |
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>>we have now. |
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> |
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> |
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> Portage is a package manager. package managers have to manage package |
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> versions and their dependencies. They do NOT have to be fancy changelog |
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> readers. As you already stated, it's not the developers responsibility |
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> to get you upgrade information. While I can see a great benefit in |
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> putting important information into the changelog, I really can't see why |
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> portage should provide functions to read a changelog, when nearly all |
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> packages provide the same information on their homepages. |
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Because the functionality already exists and is in stable portage? |
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Because some developers maintain system critical packages that can cause |
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large amounts of breakage and get complaints from users when things |
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break? Gentoo is a distribution and there is some responsibility to |
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provide users upgrade paths when packages switch versions. Gentoo isn't |
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just portage, IMHO. |
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|
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Additionally, |
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> if you really have to read the changelog before emerging the new |
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> version, the information is really important, and I'm sure it will show |
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> up in portage's changelog. |
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> |
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> Please don't make portage a news reader. |
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> |
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> Regards, |
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> |
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-- |
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