Re: [gentoo-user] update problems

[Neil Bothwick]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:45:10 +0200, lee wrote:

> Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk> writes:
>
> > Patches are always more welcome than suggestions. "Fix it!" is never
> > as welcome as "here's how". I think it was Canek who said "code
> > talks".
>
> Do you have an example for such a case?

Just look at b.g.o. Many bug reports include a patch submitted by a user
that makes its way into the tree.

> My experience has disproved
> this claim, and I've even seen people fixing stuff multiple times after
> I told them it's broken and provided a perfectly working version before
> telling them, much better coded, which they could have used instead of
> insisting on their crappy code and trying to fix it several times.

You cannot judge one group of people on the behaviour of an unrelated
group.

> >> and now even if you
> >> came up with some pointer what to look at (since emerge, for
> >> example, is a wrapper script from which I couldn't see where to
> >> start),
> >
> > Really? The first few lines of the script tell you where the real
> > scripts are? The wrapper seems to be there to deal with different
> > default Python versions.
>
> Yes, really.  I don't know python and I can see that emerge points to
> some library directory while I can not see which script would actually
> run other than the wrapper.

#!/usr/lib/python-exec/python-exec2-c
# vim:fileencoding=utf-8:ft=python
# (c) 2012 Michał Górny
# Released under the terms of the 2-clause BSD license.
#
# This is not the script you are looking for. This is just a wrapper.
# The actual scripts of this application were installed
# in subdirectories of /usr/lib/python-exec.
# You are most likely looking for one of those.

In there you will find python2.7/emerge and python3.4/emerge (depending
on which Python versions you have installed).

> I don't believe that they let everyone modify what they're working on,
> so they are the only ones who /can/ fix it.  Besides, show me where I
> said something like "I want the devs to fix it".

They don't. You submit the modifications in the bug report and they vet
and apply the patches.

> > Adding the word "just" to a demand does not make the task any
> > simpler, nor does it increase your chances of getting what you want.
>
> Go ahead and show me where I have demanded something.

Your insistence that it should be changed amounts to a demand. Your
assertion that it can be done easily only demeans the efforts of the
devs, implying that the fix is simple but they cannot be bothered.
 
> > On the contrary, it serves to illustrate that you do not grasp the
> > complexity of the situation.
>
> Perhaps you can enlighten me how it is so difficult to change a message
> from "slot conflict" to "slot conflict (can probably be ignored while
> there are other problems)" and what the complexity is which makes it
> impossible to do so.

Changing the message is trivial, knowing when to change it is not. Unless
you can provide a means to tell unimportant slot conflicts from important
ones, Context is everything and the variety of Gentoo systems out there
make it extremely difficult for portage to understand the context in
human terms. 


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Sometimes too much to drink is not enough.