New and update math/science ports

[Kevin Ballard]

On Mar 10, 2007, at 9:03 AM, Takeshi Enomoto wrote:

> I am new to MacPorts and would like to contribute new and update ports
> mainly in math and science.

Welcome!

> I have some comments on MacPorts homepage.
> I find the home page unfriendly to newbies.
> They have to find clicking "wiki."
> Although I understand that WordPress is used so news are shown,
> a page for the first step is needed.

I think we all agree that the website could use some love. The old  
darwinports site was reasonable, but since we've moved to MacOSForge  
nobody's taken the time to really make the site all that accessible.  
I believe the people with the capability to do so are simply busy,  
though that's just a guess.

> I had hard time finding that how to contribute until I find "Trac."
> 1. You have to register.
> 2. You have to know what Trac is.
> 3. You have to find the attachment appears on the next page to the  
> new ticket page.
>
> For give me for full of complains.
> In fact I find MacPorts useful and
> I would like to switch to MacPorts and contribute several math/ 
> science packages.
>
> List of my tickets.
>
> * infrastructure:
>
> g95-0.90: 11511
> odcctools 20060608 (required for g95-0.90): 11512
> netcdf-3.6.1 (an update): 11513
> libdap-3.7.5: 11514
> libnc-dap-3.7.0: 11515
> cdo-1.0.6: 11516
> nco-3.1.8: 11517
> mpich2-1.0.5p3 (an update): 11525

The ones which are updates to existing ports, have you emailed the  
maintainer of said port? The way MacPorts works is the maintainer is  
responsible for a port, and nobody else should update the port  
without permission. If you email the maintainer and haven't heard  
back in 72 hours, then other people can commit changes to the port.

So for the ones which are updates, I recommend emailing the  
maintainer of those ports now, and if you hear nothing in 3 days,  
email the list about those ports and say that you haven't heard  
anything in 3 days

> * script languages for math/science:
>
> octave-2.9.9 (an update): 11518
> octave-forge (an update, g95 variant): 11519
> gdl-0.9pre4: 11524
>
> * plotting package:
>
> plplot-5.7.2 (for gdl):  11522
> freetype-2.3.1 (required by plplot): 11520
> freefont-ttf (required by plplot): 11521
> gsl-1.9 (an update): 11523
>
> - Components  for 11519 and 11512 should have been ports.

Ok, component changed.

> - Types for 11513, 11514, 11515, 11525 should have been enhancement.

Ok, types changed. There are other ticket,s like 11519, which are  
still defect. Should those remain defect?

> - In fact I don't now which to choose from those menus well.

New/updated ports should be type enhancement, component ports.  
Revisions to existing ports (revisions meaning changing the portfile  
without bumping the version, often incrementing the revision number  
if the build products will change) should be defect if it's fixing a  
bug or enhancement if it's adding something like, say, a variant.

> - It is not clear to me your policy how to set dependencies (old  
> doc incomplete).
> - Do dependencies need a version number? How can I set it?

Dependencies are unversioned. Since MacPorts only knows how to  
install the current version of a port, the dependency can't specify  
an older (or newer) one as it would be unable to be fulfilled.

The manpage for portfile.7 talks about how to specify dependencies,  
though I disagree with how it presents port:foo versus bin:foo:bar  
(or lib:libfoo:foo). I believe you should use bin: or lib: if those  
accurately describe the type of dependency - need libjpeg? use a  
lib:libjpeg:jpeg dependency. Need gnumake? Use bin:gnumake:gmake.  
Doesn't matter if apple can or does satisfy these dependencies. The  
port:foo variation, I think, should generally only be used if you  
don't know how the dependency is meant to be satisfied (e.g. what  
library? what binary? etc.) or if you require a version newer than  
you know apple provides.

HTH,
Kevin Ballard

-- 
Kevin Ballard
http://kevin.sb.org
eridius at macports.org
http://www.tildesoft.com


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