Automatic out-of-dateness checking for base and ports tree

[Glen Whitney]

On Jun 7, 2007, at 9:13 PM, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org>  
wrote:

>> This would require no periodic checking, other than the `port sync`
>> which has to happen anyway. Nor would there be any possibility of
>> the user having problems in the intermittent period between the
>> server update and their check.
>
> Why do we even have two commands -- sync and selfupdate? Why can't we
> just have a single command which always does the right thing?

What if (for development/testing purposes) you had a branch of base  
from macports-1.4.40 installed, say, and you did a selfupdate?   
Wouldn't that either fail or overwrite your branch with the standard  
macports-1.4.42?  Yet you might want to update the portfiles even  
though you were running with a branched base (and at least for me,  
"port sync" is a lot faster than "svn update" for grabbing the latest  
portfiles).   To me, that provides justification for a "port sync"  
separate from "port selfupdate" -- I have used "port sync" for this  
reason.  Of course, I could be mistaken about what happens with a  
"port selfupdate" when your current installation is a branch, but  
I've never been brave enough to try it, lest things end up in a  
muddled state.
Regards, Glen