Re: MESSAGE considered harmful

[Marc Espie <espie%nerim.net@localhost>]

One "fun" thing we did in OpenBSD recently was an optimization to trim down
the amount of information spewed out during updates, specifically related
to MESSAGE thingies.

Specifically, we don't re-display a MESSAGE after an update if it was already
there in the old package (same checksum) and likewise for UNMESSAGE.

It's much simpler than separating messages between install and updates.

(I admit I didn't look in your code, maybe you have a similar mechanism
these days)

That way, you only get actual messages when they change and during first
install...

that gives a better handle on reducing the noise further.