Re: [gentoo-user] Networkmanager-9999 won't compile

[Albert W. Hopkins]

On Thu, 2011-10-20 at 07:37 +0530, Nilesh Govindarajan wrote:
[...]
> BTW, which overlays did you use?

I'll just interject once again.

When you use many overlays, there is a feeling of a exponential increase
in complexity/instability.

The thing is when you use official tree, all the Gentoo devs are
(supposed to) play in the same sandbox.  This means the behaviors of
different packages and their dependencies and interactions with each
other are somewhat predictable, and when problems occur, they are easier
to debug and solve because everyone's playing in the same sandbox.

When you are mixing differing packages from differing repos (overlays),
then not everyone is on the same page.  The developers in overlay A may
not be aware of what's going on in overlay B as they are usually only
concerned about their own sandboxes (and the official repo).  This can
makes debugging much more complex and, if it's an interaction between
different overlays, usually it's going to be the user who is going to
have to figure it out, not the developers.

The if you add live ebuilds into the mix, you are adding even more
sandboxes, and the upstream repos are even more unpredictable.  So one
minute you can have a perfectly harmonious system, and the next you are
dealing with a bunch of unstable isotopes.

This is not to say you can't/shouldn't do these things.  After all this
is Gentoo, and one of the nice things about Gentoo is that we *do* have
this power.  But my point is "with great power comes great
responsibility".  And sometimes that means when it breaks, *you* get to
pick up the pieces.

-a