Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 00:14:05 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh> To: ports Subject: Recent bsd.port.mk enhancements.. Message-ID: <199504010814.AAA16328@freefall.cdrom.com>
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Just one comment: They don't mean a thing if they're not documented in
GUIDELINES or ports.FAQ (which I'd actually like to see folded into one
document, to be honest). This stuff is getting _really complex_ and
if we don't document all the options, most ports-hopefuls will be scared
away!
Sure, it's easy to most of us because we were here in the beginning,
when it was fairly SIMPLE, and we've been able to absorb the complicates
gradually. To a ports collection newcomer, this stuff is _confusing_!
We've got PATCHFILES and EXTRACT_ONLY and DISTFILES file lists, a dozen odd
NO_<FOO> booleans, and all kinds of doc strings to fill out on top of that
(MAINTAINER, MASTER_SITES, etc).
We need to really start working on the rough edges of all of this a bit
more than we probably need to grow it right now.. I'm always very happy
to see new ports, mind you, but I think we have an impending catastrophe
on our hands! :-)
We have 212 ports as of this morning, and I would not be at all surprised
to see this number exceed 500 by the end of summer. If we don't plan on
how we're going to _scale_ all of this now, we're going to be in a world
of pain and frustration in 6 months! I already deeply regret not adding
version numbers as an additional layer(*) back when that would have been
possible without major big-time upheaval, now it's too late! :-(
If we can avoid similarly short-sighted mistakes then I'd be pretty
happy! It's still a much nicer framework than the 1.x ports collection,
but parts of it are also starting to get... kinda funky! :-)
Can we see what we might be able to do to rescue ourselves from doom
and oblivion before it happens? I have a couple of changes I'll be
making shortly to make "metaports" and such more possible, but it's only
a start in what will have to be a much more grandiose overhaul. The ports
collection doesn't respond to _change_ very well, and we need to
figure something out about that! I made some pretty short-sighted decisions
of my own in there that I'm going to be strongly reviewing in the next
couple of days.. Let's talk! :-)
Jordan
(*) Someone tried to convince me of this early on, I stubbornly refused,
he was right and I was wrong! :-(
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