Hi all, I got this idea and I'm not sure if it would be feasible, but if it is, it could lead to many Cool Things: Is there any reason not to have dynamic libraries for most of the changes made by USE flags, that are used only if present, and then the USE flags would just specify whether to compile that library?
That way, one of the benefits would be that USE flags could be changed on the fly, and the whole system could be tweaked with minimal recompilation... but probably the biggest benefit would be the programming paradigm shift that this could affect, by pushing the packages toward a more dynamic, client-server module where the different parts of the package have separate purposes that they each independently achieve. This way, it could also make development a lot easier. As an example, lets use some fictional package "quux" that has optional support for Kde or Gnome. the quux-kde library and the quux-gnome library could be interchangable, and, from the point of view of the quux-core code, the same, allowing one programming interface to apply to both. Changes to quux's main system would just be in quux-core, and quux-kde and -gnome could remain the same, while if gnome support needed improvement, it would just be a matter of improving the quux-gnome library, with no risk of breaking the main system or causing undesired results elsewhere. This would also allow for more shared code, because two packages could use the same library in some cases. So, what do you think? -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
