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Bernd Steinhauser wrote: |
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> And that is, what this is about, making EAPI bumps as less painful as |
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> possible. The filename is the easiest solution for that. |
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|
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In any design, there are "easy" short-cuts that can be taken. But |
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sometimes these short-cuts break paradigms that are fundamental. If you |
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wanted, you could throw a bunch of things into the filename and make it |
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255 characters long to avoid reading the file, but that clearly would be |
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a pretty bad design. |
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|
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> I really fail to see the point, why it is so important, that the |
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> extension will still be .ebuild in the future. |
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> |
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> There is a lot of software, that keeps using the same filename for |
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> different versions of stuff and in many cases, that is a huge mess. |
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|
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Is the "huge mess" you are thinking of the basic reality that software |
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of any reasonable complexity needs to deal with file formats evolving? |
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If so, that is exactly why EAPIs now are being introduced. |
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|
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But almost all software deals with this transparently - no need to |
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expose it to the user, and sticking the version in the filename is both |
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fragile (renaming the file can alter it) and seems like a hack. |
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|
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> I still haven't seen any good reasons against it. |
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|
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I realize that there are two camps of people here. One camp sees |
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mangling the filename extension as an undesirable way to deal with this, |
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and the other camp simply sees no problem with this. |
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|
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I want to point out, however, that the fact that you do not see the |
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issue does not make the issue invalid. I am sure there are people who |
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work at Apple who care nothing about the way an iPhone looks or feels |
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and only care that it works correctly. If that person went to Steve |
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Jobs and said, "Why are you spending so much money to make this thing |
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look cool?", he would say that Apple is known for making cool things, |
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and no one would buy something that works great but looks like a piece |
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of junk. He'd be right. |
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|
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I realize this analogy is a bit of an exaggeration, but there is no |
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reason we cannot make EAPIs work correctly and very efficiently (this is |
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where technical innovation comes in), while also keeping the basic |
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interface (and I include file name convention here) clean, standard, |
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uncluttered, uncomplicated, and elegant. |
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|
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-Joe |
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-- |
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