Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Portage: missing pieces

[Richard Fish]

On 7/10/06, Molle Bestefich <molle.bestefich@×××××.com> wrote:
> Richard Fish wrote:
> > of gcc doesn't seem very effecient.
>
> I can't see why it would not be efficient?

I think it is an inefficient use of developer time.  Do we really want
gentoo devs spending their time figuring out what the minimum gcc
version is for their packages, and then having very similar code
duplicated in every ebuild in the tree?  Is the problem really so
serious that it requires that much effort?

I am not saying that there should never be a check for a minimum gcc
version...maybe if a large enough population of users is having a
problem with a particular package because of gcc, then that package
_should_ have a check with an appropriate "stop using obsolete gcc
versions" message.  But it should only be done in response to bug
filings, and at the discretion of the package maintainer.

And let's remember that this is a ~arch package.  The expectations of
people using ~arch is higher than for the stable tree.  Indeed, you
would probably see a completely different response if this was a
problem using the ~x86 gcc to build the ~x86 xine-lib.

> > And putting the checks in portage doesn't seem to work very well
> > either.
>
> I fail to see how a test in the ebuild for the active
> GCC compiler version wouldn't work?

But that isn't putting a check "in portage", it is adding it to the ebuilds.

> > The system as it is now actually seems to work about right... the
> > vast majority of stable users upgrade to new versions of gcc as they
> > come out
>
> I'd think that most users hadn't even run into this problem (yet),

Agreed...

> because many source code maintainers strive to be able to compile with
> as old a version of GCC as possible..

or alternatively, because most users upgrade gcc to the current
version before running into such problems.

-Richard
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