[gentoo-portage-dev] Re: [PATCHES] Remove --autounmask, rename --autounmask-write to --autounmask

[Duncan]

Alexander Berntsen posted on Thu, 21 Nov 2013 10:21:02 +0100 as excerpted:

> After talking to zmedico privately, and raising the issue and discussing
> it with people in bug #481578[0], I implemented the behaviour described
> in a comment[1] on said bug.
>
> I sent this to zmedico almost two months ago, but it doesn't look like
> he's coming back any time soon, so I'm sending it here and ask someone
> to review and commit it (a role zmedico has typically played for me, as
> well as being my "mentor" and guide and so on and so forth for Portage
> hacking).
>
> [0]  <https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481578>
> [1]  <https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481578#c10>>

I'm with zmedico in comment #11, and *STRONGLY* oppose this change as 
you're proposing.  Current autounmask is **NOT** useless.

FWIW, I have a very specific portage layout and there's no way "dumb 
automation" could put what I'd consider the appropriate write in what I'd 
consider the appropriate file, nor do I want it to try!  (And even if it 
could do it perfectly, I want to /know/ what my config is, and the best 
way for me to /know/ my config is if the only way it changes is if I 
change it myself!)

OTOH, current default autounmask (without write) behavior, having portage 
tell me what (it thinks) I need to unmask and/or what package.use flags 
it thinks I need is fine, and often quite helpful indeed, as long as it's 
not actually trying to actually WRITE it anywhere!

If I read the above correctly, what you're proposing would kill that 
behavior entirely if --ask is used, defaulting to writing (fine if it can 
be turned off), with no way (at least no way with --ask instead of
--pretend) to tell portage to make the suggestion it with --autounmask 
(which is the default now), with absolutely no chance it's going to 
attempt to actually rewrite my config on its own, period.

OTOH, Zac's suggestion, to simply enable autounmask-write by default but 
allow the user to set --autounmask-write=n if they want, would be just 
fine, since I could put that in default options and be done with it.

Tho even that's a sufficiently drastic change from current behavior that 
I'd expect a good changelog entry mentioning it, and preferably a news 
item, as it has the potential to screw up people's configs if they aren't 
paying attention when the default changes.

-- 
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