[gentoo-dev] Re: developer profile

[Steve Long]

Duncan wrote:

> Thomas Sachau <tommy@g.o> posted 48E8B217.8020505@g.o,
> excerpted below, on  Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:24:55 +0200:
>
>> I just had a user in bugzilla who thought, the developer profile would
>> be for software developers, not just for gentoo developers. Probably he
>> is not the only one.
>>
>> What about either adding some big warning on portage output or renaming
>> this profile to e.g. "gentoodeveloper"?
>>
>
> There's a thread in the archive discussing this.  The conclusion then
> seemed to be that the traditional profile.bashrc test for
> I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING=yes, with a suitable warning if it wasn't set,
> should be enough.
>
> The problem with that is that the profile itself sets that var in
> profiles/targets/developer/make.defaults, so anyone using the profile has
> it set automatically, rather defeating the purpose of the test in the
> first place.
>
> The solution would be to remove that bit from profiles/targets/developer
> (and other places it may be set in the profiles, forcing those using the
> developer profiles to actually set it themselves.  If they don't, they
> get the warning.

That seems like a clean (and simple) solution.

> If they see the warning and set it anyway, well, one
> would hope they /do/ know what they are doing, and if they don't, as the
> saying goes "If it breaks, you (they) get to keep the pieces!"
>
> I'd suggest a somewhat less generic var as well.  Perhaps
> I_AM_A_GENTOO_TESTER_AND_I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING, or maybe
> I_KNOW_THIS_MAY_BREAK_BUT_I_AM_TESTING_AND_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING.
>
Wooh, calm down there ;) Longer synonyms with no additional semantic data
don't help anyone ime; it's already long enough (and, speaking as an
end-user, typing it in does make you stop and think about what you're
doing, after you stop laughing, so it does serve its purpose.)
 
> Or make the profile.bashrc test for both the var and a more specific
> value, perhaps like this:
>
> I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING="and I know it can break but I am testing"
>
Hehe. I think just doing what you mentioned above, ie not setting it in the
defaults, but allowing the user to do so at installation (or whenever)
would solve it. The loud warning notice does put casual users off, and it
should be enabled by default for arguably any unsupported profile.

Devs will no doubt be quick to set up their own machines as and how they
want; expecting a single additional config var in amongst the make.conf
template isn't such a big deal, and keeps the support burden down.