[gentoo-dev] Re: developer profile

[Duncan]

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.  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.

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"

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman