ports with bootstrapping dependencies

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Jun 22, 2007, at 12:12 PM, Taylor R Campbell wrote:

>  +from-scratch requires nothing but a C compiler and an operating
>    system, fetches a tarball containing pre-generated C files,
>    and bootstraps the whole system from that.  Slow.

I realize the pain involved in going this route, but it seems like  
we're trading mere compilation time for engineering time, and the  
latter is almost always more expensive.  I do understand your desire  
to not heat up your lap, but speaking from just my personal viewpoint,  
I'd far rather have a nice, generic port which took an hour to compile  
than have to figure out which of n ports to use and also deal with the  
fragility of these ports over what could be multiple OS releases and  
variable availability of suitable bootstrap compilers for whatever  
architecture / word size (ppc, ppc64, x86_32, x86_64, and so on) I  
might be trying to target.  An hour is a fine amount of time to go  
warm up the latte maker and make myself a nice latte to drink while I  
wait. :-)

- Jordan

P.S. An hour today, sure, but probably only 5 minutes on the new 2048  
core Mac Pro we haven't released yet.

P.P.S. Yes, of course I'm joking.  For now, anyway. :-)

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