Gentoo Archives: gentoo-portage-dev

From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net>
To: gentoo-portage-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-portage-dev] Re: [PATCH 2/2 v2] depgraph: soname dependency resolution (282639)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2015 03:03:43
Message-Id: pan$6589$61838996$c9fe35e$b805195f@cox.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-portage-dev] [PATCH 2/2 v2] depgraph: soname dependency resolution (282639) by Zac Medico
1 Zac Medico posted on Fri, 13 Feb 2015 10:35:09 -0800 as excerpted:
2
3 > Soname dependency resolution is enabled when --ignore-soname-deps=n is
4 > specified, and [...]
5
6 Can that option possibly be renamed?
7
8 "Ignore" is functionally a negative, as in "don't consider". As a
9 result, --ignore-sonames-deps=n is a double-negative that actually
10 enables something, and it becomes rather difficult to reason about what
11 you're actually telling portage to do.
12
13 Unfortunately, I'm confused enough myself that I don't have any
14 suggestions for any better option name. =:^(
15
16
17 In case there's any doubt about how much trouble English speakers often
18 have with multiple negation, I follow a linguists blog called LanguageLog,
19 that regularly features examples of "misnegation", in which all sorts of
20 people have ended up saying the opposite of what they obviously intended
21 because of an incorrect number of negations. People really do have
22 trouble sorting it out, and some of the examples are actually quite
23 humorous.
24
25 Here's a google on "misnegation". At least from here, the top three hits
26 are Language log, with #3 being a big list of posts on the topic.
27
28 https://www.google.com/search?q=misnegation&ie=UTF-8
29
30 And here's one of the more amusing ones, a billboard at a(n apparently
31 UK) petrol/gas station:
32
33 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14927
34
35 (FWIW, I recently emailed the author of a popular FLOSS community
36 standards blog about a misnegation as well. He fixed it, and sent me a
37 nice reply/thanks.)
38
39
40 So, umm... Let's come up with some other option name here, one that
41 doesn't invoke multiple negation to turn ON a function, and thus hurt to
42 think about, if at all possible. =:^/
43
44 Tho arguably with the double negation turning something ON, at least
45 we're not misnegating here. It's confusing and hard to think about, but
46 AFAICT, logically correct. =:^) Of course that doesn't mean people can
47 actually /use/ it correctly, thus the problem. =:^\
48
49 --
50 Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
51 "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
52 and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

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