[gentoo-user] Re: Problem understanding "eix"

[Martin Vaeth]

Dr Rainer Woitok <rainer.woitok@×××××.com> wrote:
> I STRONGLY beg to disagree!   The "~amd64" notation  is used to ACCEPT a
> package even though it is  (still) classified as UNSTABLE.

This is package-manager terminology which has much less states since
a package manager needs no fine distinctions about the reasons of
accepting or rejecting a package and which of these reasons are caused
by your local configuration.
In eix there's several configurations: The default (repository) one
and the local one (actually even another one with a local profile
override).
A lot of states (stable, masked, package-masked, etc) can change between
these configurations. You can of course invent a new term for each of the
several dozens or more possible combination of states,
but it is much simpler and more natural to allow all checks separately
and use terms for the individual properties which are similar to that of
portage. For the optical output, eix displays less information which
are more similar to portage.

> If "{!isstable}"  isn't equivalent to  "{isunstable}",
> there's a severe logical problem involved.

There would be a severe information problem if there were just a
few such states and the natural term "unstable" with the analogous
"alienunstable" would have been reserved for a mere negation.

> Besides, in my book "was stable" sort of means "is no longer stable"

It means it was stable before your local overrides. It may or not be
stable after your local overrides. Analogously for alienstable,
alienunstable, masked, etc.