| 1 |
On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o> wrote: |
| 2 |
> I find setting USE="qt4 -qt5" a lot more obvious than having USE="qt" (why not |
| 3 |
> USE="X" ?) which then does different things based on another useflag, |
| 4 |
> sometimes. Maybe. It's horribly inconsistent and even might change result over |
| 5 |
> time, which is not very user-friendly. |
| 6 |
|
| 7 |
The problem is that this approach breaks down with scenarios which are |
| 8 |
likely to be commonplace. |
| 9 |
|
| 10 |
I want to use fooplayer and bargrapher which are two qt-based |
| 11 |
applications. fooplayer only supports qt4, and bargrapher only |
| 12 |
supports qt5. What USE flags should I set, without restorting to |
| 13 |
per-package flags? Then I also install klunkybrowser which supports |
| 14 |
both qt4 and qt5 but not at the same time, so how should I manage my |
| 15 |
flags for that? |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
The current qt policy just has each package support only one version |
| 18 |
using USE=qt and while it denies user choice for klunkybrowser it is |
| 19 |
at least simple. The alternative of "qt means I don't care what |
| 20 |
version" is also simple - the klunkybrowser maintainer would pick the |
| 21 |
best default and those who care can override it. The approach qt4=qt4 |
| 22 |
and qt5=qt5 seems simpler on the surface, but it means that users end |
| 23 |
up having to set tons of per-package configurations when they don't |
| 24 |
actually care which one they use, and it also doesn't necessarily hint |
| 25 |
to users which will give them the best experience on each package. |
| 26 |
|
| 27 |
Right now you can get away with just USE="qt4 -qt5" because we don't |
| 28 |
have many qt5-only packages in the tree (I actually have one I've been |
| 29 |
holding off on introducing due to qt5 not being in the tree until |
| 30 |
recently). When that changes the mutually-exclusive flags approach |
| 31 |
will be very painful. |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
-- |
| 34 |
Rich |
Archives