Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] I am a "f*****g retard". Can you help me?
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:26:14
Message-Id: 200809162126.31722.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] I am a "f*****g retard". Can you help me? by Vaeth
1 On Tuesday 16 September 2008 21:04:59 Vaeth wrote:
2 > Alan McKinnon wrote:
3 > > "You asked me to do something. It didn't work
4 >
5 > But it is an annoyance if you leave your computer on during the three
6 > days you are on the road to compile a load of new packages like e.g.
7 > a new kde version, and when you return, compiling has not even started
8 > because your first pacakge fortune-mod had a trivial file collision.
9
10 Yes, it is indeed extremely annoying. As a KDE-4 and e17-svn user I'm all too
11 aware.... But you have to consider the actual cost of a technique designed to
12 increase convenience where the results are not determined.
13
14 > > A failed emerge is by definition an error, and unpredictable. How can we
15 > > expect software to dream up the best solution to an exception?
16 >
17 > Since the best solution to this exception is to finish that part of
18 > the task which is not influenced by this error, I think the
19 > expectation for this exception is clear.
20
21 "Which is not influenced" - this is the crucial clause, the one that is
22 fraught with error. Who is to say what "not influenced" actually means? A
23 complete lack of any related dependencies is one workable way to scope it. It
24 happens often enough that it's worth the effort to accommodate it.
25
26 But it also represents an alternate unexpected code path and for that reason I
27 believe it warrants a configuration option but not to be default. IOW, you
28 have to ask for it to get it.
29
30 If you haven't already guessed, I subscribe to the school of thought of "Don't
31 Cause Unintended Side-Effects"
32
33 --
34 alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] I am a "f*****g retard". Can you help me? Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>