Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 10:29:14 +1000 From: David Nugent <davidn@labs.usn.blaze.net.au> To: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com> Cc: current@hub.freebsd.org Subject: Re: exmh and current.. anyone? Message-ID: <199708160029.KAA00864@labs.usn.blaze.net.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 09 Aug 1997 22:41:40 MST." <199708100541.WAA00914@rah.star-gate.com>
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> From The Desk Of Jeffrey Hsu : > > > How do you work around the stupid tcl8 problem? > > > > I had to do this the other day and I just ftp'ed the tcl8 and tk8 > > distribution from ftp.smli.com, untarred them in the same subdirectory, > > and built and installed just tk. > > Hmm... > > I think we have bigger problem and that is perhaps some that are > running current shouldn't be running current. For those willing to accept the "risks", I'd actually prefer to see it that way. Bugs are usually shaken out first in current, and having only developers run that code means it gets significantly less exposure. Still, your comment is valid. I just wouldn't like to see it become so much as a discouragement to run -current as a warning to those who would like to do so that it isn't the platform to pick if you want to run a stable system that won't require some reconfiguration now and then. While I also "complained" on this same issue in the earlier thread, my complaint did not relate directly to any inconvenience I personally suffered (in fact, I've already been running tcl/tk8 for some weeks with some apps - all of them had to be adjusted, but only TkDesk broke beyond all repair), just its effect on ports and attempting to define some solutions (which have been largely shrugged off for little reason, but then - I don't see things from the same perspective and I'm obviously missing something). I'm quite prepared to put up with those sorts of problems, as should anyone who runs -current. I believe that Satoshi's final "solution" which I first saw suggested by Michael Smith, that the ports tree should be as independent as possible from the base system, is probably for the best anyway. tcl and perl (does anything in the source tree use embedded perl yet? nvi?) are probably "special" in this regard because their interface tends to be very library version dependant, and with tcl there is the problem with init.tcl and other anciliaries. APIs for other libraries are usually added to and enhanced, but rarely actually change so radically. As someone pointed out, if the new tcl8 initialisation files were moved into /usr/libdata/tcl8.0/ rather than their current location, it would mitigate problems with any transition from 2.2 to -current as the existing files and libraries would remain intact. I honestly hope this is changed at some point before the 3.0 release. It would also have the side-effect that the version in the -current branch of the day can change without yet another a repeat of this entire episode. It is quite possible that we'll see tcl version 8.1 or higher before 3.0 looks even close to release. If it has to be there, and apparently it does, I'd far prefer to see it maintained and kept current. Regards, David -- David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/
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