Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: news item: changes to stages (make.conf and make.profile)

[Brian Harring]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 04:32:00PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 4:24 PM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@g.o> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA256
> >
> > On 24/07/12 02:52 PM, Rick "Zero_Chaos" Farina wrote:
> >> On 07/24/2012 09:33 AM, Fabian Groffen wrote:
> >>> On 24-07-2012 09:24:03 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >>>> I guess this is a matter of opinion, but on Gentoo I don't
> >>>> think we're really at much risk of driving people away by
> >>>> OVER-communicating.  Our users are used to things changing and
> >>>> a certain level of fix-it-yourself, but if we know something is
> >>>> going to cause no end of questions it only makes sense to throw
> >>>> the users a bone once in a while.
> >>
> >>> The way in which news items aggressively request your attention,
> >>> makes them something that should only be used if it's obvious
> >>> it's important for the user (e.g. postfix thing for postfix
> >>> users). This particular change seems more something for
> >>> -announce, note in the handbook, and something like the
> >>> suggestion of a file giving a nice hint.
> >>
> >>> My impression is that the message is absolutely useless to the
> >>> majority of users on their *already installed* system, so don't
> >>> make everyone have to see the news item notice a couple of times
> >>> and run `eselect news read` just for this.
> >>
> >>
> >> While I completely understand where Fabian is coming from on all
> >> this I respectfully disagree.  Long term gentoo users do NOT read
> >> the handbook, ever.  I still install new systems with odd hacks
> >> that I picked up when gentoo was versioned 1.x and it pleases me, I
> >> don't care if those steps are not in the docs anymore or
> >> discouraged or whatever.  I've not even glanced at the handbook for
> >> years, yet I've installed gentoo on dozens of systems since the
> >> last time I did.
> >
> > Right, but would a news item now (regarding Catalyst) for something
> > you do next month be particularily helpful, compared to a
> > 'make.conf.moved' reminder file in /etc ?  Or maybe a make.conf
> > synlink to profiles/make.conf ?  Or something else within the stage
> > itself that makes it obvious that it's changed?
>
> I've often seen cases like these handled by keeping a referenced file
> where it's traditionally expected to be found, but leaving a comment
> in that file explaining that the content of that file had been moved
> to a new location, and the old location is deprecated.
>
> Would that work for a circumstance like this?

Not really, no- it would mean the PM would have to parse/merge both 
locations, rather than just looking for the file in one of two spots.

~brian