Re: [gentoo-dev] openrc-0.5.1 arrived in the tree

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tuesday 13 October 2009 20:33:35 Mark Loeser wrote:
> Mike Frysinger <vapier@g.o> said:
> > On Tuesday 13 October 2009 19:30:52 Joshua Saddler wrote:
> > > All that to say, Tommy (et al), is that the idea of expecting users to
> > >  magically know everything and not to offer any documentation *in
> > > advance* . . . is a silly idea. Good lord, can you imagine the
> > > shitstorm the X11 team would have gone through if they'd tried *that*
> > > without first writing up xserver 1.5 and 1.6 migration guides?!
> >
> > we arent talking migrations that are forced onto everyone.  we're talking
> > about new code that users have to *opt in* for ("new net") that is only
> > available in unstable.  expecting everything in testing to be documented
> > up front is unreasonable.  no one is saying the stuff shouldnt be
> > documented, just that complete user friendly coverage is not a
> > requirement for unstable. your comments here dont really apply to
> > bleeding edge -- they certainly apply to stable though.
>
> I'd say this isn't correct.  Unstable isn't a pure testing playground.
> its meant for packages that should be considered for stable.  As such,
> we should make sure that we get the documentation needed ready, so we
> can make sure that it is correct for people that are testing the upgrade
> path for us.  It then gives us a chance to correct our documentation
> before it goes stable.

i disagree with this strict interpretation of stable vs unstable.  while it's 
a noble ideal, it isnt realistic.  we have plenty of versions that go into 
unstable with no plans of them going stable as they're good for vetting new 
issues on the way to a newer stable version.  i'd prefer to have a bunch of 
smaller changes with minor issues in each than a large code dump which is hard 
to coordinate problems with actual changes.

> All this comes down to is laziness in documenting changes, and forcing
> stuff upon our users.  Neither of those things is good, and if everyone
> thinks that's the status quo...that really should change.

then everyone in Gentoo is lazy because we always have things that lack 100% 
coverage.  we also arent forcing anything onto users.  the documentation hole 
here applies only to new code that is disabled by default.
-mike