Re: bulk-*

[Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost>]

David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 12:37:36AM +0200, Aleksey Cheusov wrote:
>  > On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 9:50 PM, Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost> 
> wrote:
>  > > Please, try to understand the difference between meta-package and a
>  > > collection of packages. One fundamental difference is that it has to
>  > > install all of its dependencies in order to get built. We do have
>  > > conflicting packages in pkgsrc, don't we?
>  > 
>  > I think this is a good point. I thought about the same when bulk-* 
> appeared.
>  > However, I think this raises much more fundamental pkgsrc's problem.
>  > If run-time dependency is really RUN-TIME, there is no any reason to 
> install
>  > them at build time for building a meta package.
>
> Yes, and as meta-packages are special-cased in a lot of ways already
> it's not necessarily a bad idea to just adopt this behavior.

In this particular case, it is bad idea.

Currently meta-packages serve one clear purpose. They bring complete
environments for some purpose, e.g. complete desktop environments
(Gnome, KDE, Xfce, WindowMaker), environments to work with NetBSD
documentation, TeX environment, and so on. You're trying to adapt them
for bulk builds essentially. We have several bulk build tools already
that do much better than meta-package can do in principle.

>  > From practical point of view, it's easier to keep bulk-* as meta packages
>  > and provide a way to not install "dependencies" at build-time thus avoiding
>  > problems if conflicting "dependencies" appear. I don't think adapting bulk
>  > build tools for this functionality is a right way to go.
>
> The other practical issue is that we don't have any method for
> handling lists of packages other than meta-packages; and, most
> meta-packages are in fact "lists of packages". The only thing
> different about the bulk-* packages is that installing them is
> basically useless.

Contrary to this claim, we do. We have two ways, actually, pkg_chk and pbulk.

> If you want to float an entire new scheme of lists of packges just so
> the bulk-* lists don't themselves have to be packages, be my guest,
> but it seems like a lot of work in pursuit of a minor abstract point.

This whole "work" is just publishing those lists in a format of
"category/package" per line which is what pbulk expects.

> (Admittedly it is also untidy that at least bulk-large cannot itself
> be "built" successfully, but until we're down to no more than a dozen
> or so routine failures I don't see this as terribly important.)

As I pointed before, pbulk handles this just fine no matter the number
of failures.


-- 
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