Hello, On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 5:55 AM, Eitan Adler <ead...@freebsd.org> wrote: > Hi, > > I’m been working recently on a series of PRs that called “Reaper > of the Dead” PRs. I have been going through the various build files we > have (for source, docs, and especially ports) and attempting to remove > dead code, old cruft, and unneeded checks. Some examples include > ports/155543, ports/155511, ports/154395, conf/155737, and > conf/155738. My goal has been twofold: making it easier to understand > what is going on, and speeding up the process without requiring > significant change. > > One of the features that has given us the most trouble has been > the options framework for ports. We automatically test ports using the > default options, but we are unable to perform automated using every > combination of options. A port with just four options has sixteen > possible configurations, and some ports have more than that. Even > supporting one option might double the number of things to test. > > However some ports rely on specific configurations of options of > other ports. In order to deal with this mess we have come up with a > hack: slave ports. We have entire ports that are designed just to > change the default options for other ports. This requires a > non-trivial amount of code on the bsd.*.mk files to support. > > Automated configuration is not the only thing that has caused us > trouble in the past. We routinely have to do deal with questions from > inexperienced users on questions@ and ports@ details problems with > non-standard configurations. Many times the solution to a ports > related problem is flipping a bit in the options file. > > I propose removing the options systems entirely. While it does > serve a small purpose of allowing customization for some end users, I > believe the flaws outweigh the benefits. Removing the options > framework would enable us to remove over 500 lines of expensive code > from the ports system. Not only that but because maintainers would be > able to choose the best possible configuration for the their port > users would no longer have to mess around. > > While I understand there might some minor part of the community > that has a sentimental attachment to the blue-on-gray-on-blue > configuration, and still others want to prematurely optimize, a simple > workaround could be implemented. We can allow users to add their own > ./configure arguments to the makefile. This serves the needs of the > community while allowing us to deal with a simpler and more reliable > ports system. > > Feel free to express your thoughts here. I would like to get this > hashed out now so the process could occur on a later date(1).
Nice. :-) Would it be to early to propose that this is just another April Fools joke? HAND -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen _______________________________________________ freebsd-ports@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-ports To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-ports-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
