On Sat, 22 Sep 2012 10:05:41 -0700 Brian Dolbec <dol...@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 2012-09-22 at 09:55 +0200, Michał Górny wrote: > > Hello, > > > > The current dependency syntax: > > > > [VERSION-OP] PACKAGE-NAME ["-" PACKAGE-VERSION] > > > > suffers a few problems: > > > > > > 1. It is not really human-friendly. > > > > People don't say things like: > > > > I need newer than monkey-1.2. > > > > They say instead: > > > > I need monkey, newer than version 1.2. > > > [snip :/ ] > > > 4. It follows the syntax used by bash (for conditionals), pkg-config > > -- it is more natural in the environment. > > > > The BIG problem with that is bash has nothing to do with evaluating > dependencies. All bash does is source the *DEPEND and pass the value > to the package manager which does all the processing. And all 3 > current package managers are set up to parse those dep strings with a > set syntax and whitespace. None of the PM's dependency resolvers are > written in bash, two are python based, one C++. This proposal would > throw a big monkey wrench into parsing those strings. Introducing > lots of bugs, both in the PM and the ebuilds. It has all to do with people writing ebuilds. Also, I don't really see a problem with parsing it. Bash is not really relevant here; Python and C++ doesn't have a problem with either syntax. It's just about correct tokenizer design. > And this after all the fuss about the unified DEPENDENCIES proposal, > which is a small syntax change for the current processing code, easily > incorporated into the PM's. Err, no, it isn't. It requires redesigning ebuilds, cache, and probably a lot of code paths in the dependency parser unless the new syntax is going to be converted back to old one. Mine is easily incorporated into the PM; it is just a change in a single place splitting and parsing the tokens. > AND has definite, measurable advantages. We still didn't get a single one. So, I think you just don't like it and are inventing disadvantages without even caring enough to consider them before writing. -- Best regards, Michał Górny
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