Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: sys-libs/zlib: punt from system in profiles
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:41:27
Message-Id: CAGfcS_nBAG4s=HegdoXy4z0u0H60Nh6XLHQUiDe94ZiYovFkCA@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: sys-libs/zlib: punt from system in profiles by Zac Medico
1 On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Zac Medico <zmedico@g.o> wrote:
2 > Ignoring circular dependencies doesn't make them go away. Ignoring
3 > dependencies can lead to build failures that could have been avoided if
4 > they were expressed in a way that the dependency resolver could properly
5 > account for them.
6
7 ++
8
9 One man's gawk is another man's KDE. A solution that expresses all
10 dependencies and handles them well is much more elegant than one that
11 requires hard-coding a list of core dependencies that we just think
12 are too complicated to work out.
13
14 Of course, to really get to the point where we'd have no system set at
15 all we'd need to somehow automate the dependency generation, since
16 otherwise ebuild maintenance would be very painful. Considering that
17 we can't even tell if a program will halt it is clearly impossible to
18 guarantee a perfect set of runtime dependencies. Of course, you might
19 be able to come up with something that is good enough - especially
20 when combined with the ability to add them in manually.
21
22 None of this completely solves the fundamental bootstrapping problem.
23 However, a full set of dependency specifications would let you at
24 least determine what the minimal bootstrap actually is.
25
26 I see all of this as more of an aspirational goal - one that we
27 shouldn't fret about not being able to achieve, or subject ourselves
28 to tremendous pain to get a little closer to. However, we also
29 shouldn't hold back when opportunities to take a step closer arise.
30
31 Rich