From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 13 20:59:43 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BABC516A41B; Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:59:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from stephen@math.missouri.edu) Received: from cauchy.math.missouri.edu (cauchy.math.missouri.edu [128.206.184.213]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CA6E13C448; Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:59:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from stephen@math.missouri.edu) Received: from laptop2.gateway.2wire.net (cauchy.math.missouri.edu [128.206.184.213]) by cauchy.math.missouri.edu (8.14.2/8.14.1) with ESMTP id lBDKxRDk014639; Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:59:28 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from stephen@math.missouri.edu) Message-ID: <47619D3D.1070804@math.missouri.edu> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:59:41 -0600 From: Stephen Montgomery-Smith User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071203 SeaMonkey/1.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Steven Kreuzer References: <475F7390.9090509@gmail.com> <1022BEDA-8641-4686-AB1A-3FE2D688F47F@FreeBSD.org> <475FAC1F.1010401@gmail.com> <19341C6C-BF3A-4DFD-B8DF-87F4E92B0335@FreeBSD.org> <0F330142-A3CA-4E6E-84BD-FDE55A8E3AEE@yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <0F330142-A3CA-4E6E-84BD-FDE55A8E3AEE@yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org, Ade Lovett Subject: Re: Limitations of Ports System X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:59:43 -0000 Steven Kreuzer wrote: > This thread was called "results of ports re-engineering survey" but I > figured I would start a new thread. > > On Dec 12, 2007, at 6:45 AM, Ade Lovett wrote: >> >> >> We *know* it can be done better. We *know* the scaling limits of the >> current system, and most of us are completely amazed it even still works. >> >> If y'all want to make a difference, concepts and ideas we have plenty >> of. Code talks. > > Out of curiosity, are any of these shortcomings documented anywhere? I > have been using ports on my home machine for a long time and I've never > had any problems with it. I assume the issues come into play when you > work with multiple systems you are trying to keep in sync, etc. > > I would be interested in reading about some of the limitations people > have run into when using ports. My personal frustration is the great length of time it takes to do "make index" and pkg_version (which calls "make -V PKGNAME"). The problem is that make has to read the entire makefile, including all the includes, before it can decide the value of any variable. I spent quite a while looking for speed improvements in this particular area, and couldn't find anything. I think that you have to dispense with "make" as the tool that coordinates the building of the ports, and rethink it from scratch. (I more or less came to the conclusion that it would be better to wait ten years until computers are ten times faster, and that in the mean time I could live with this particular problem.) Stephen