Re: [gentoo-dev] Releng breakage with respect to move from dev-python/python-exec to dev-lang/python-exec

[Alan McKinnon]

On 02/11/2013 17:03, Michał Górny wrote:
> I was considering writing a news item for it but we discussed it on IRC
> and decided that users are really expected to be able to handle
> themselves, especially wrt to:
>
> 1. using 'emerge -Du @world' to upgrade their systems,
>
> 2. reading the blocker output to see that it states
> '<dev-python/python-exec-10000' -> which suggests: what if I upgrade to
> 10000?


Sadly, it's somewhat common for (newish) users to not know what to do
with that. Blocker output can be quite daunting in the beginning,
especially if it's in the middle of 20 other things portage is also
updating.

It's not easy to parse this stuff; I've been using gentoo for what feels
like forever and I still haven't managed to hard-wire my head to read
blockers like an idiom. I have to study it and usually end up reading
the affected ebuild directly.

The basic problem is that there's a lot of information to convey re a
blocker, but to new users it all just looks like noise.

One set of questions that were never answered and probably do deserve
some kind of notification:

1. What exactly is python-exec anyway?
2. Why are there two, in dev-python/ and dev-lang/ ?
3. One has a version of -10000, which is *highly* unusual, what is that
exactly? 1 more than -9999?
4. There is some kind of migration going on between an old and new
python-exec, but I can't understand it using only standard portage tools.

An advance notice was probably warranted in this case, not to avoid
bugs, but just to alert folk that something is coming down the wire and
a short description of what it's trying to achieve. Most folks are
naturally suspicious of anything that alters their python setup.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com