Ports recommending other ports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 12, 2009, at 20:58, Bradley Giesbrecht wrote:

> Thanks for the ascii. Let me borrow it.
>
> <some port> variants
> [  ] mysql		Enable MySQL support for the connector function.
> [  ] universal	Build Universal Binaries
> [X] SSL		Support SSL connections
> Other port that work well with <some port>
> [  ]<Some port admin>	 HTML interface to manage <someport>
>
>
> But now, if you do a build on <Some port admin> should you use  
> "menu config", as I think it's called on gentoo, after the first  
> port run, on the checked "Other ports that work well with <some  
> port>"?
>
> And possibly descend into some ongoing hell?
>
> Maybe a:
> [   ] Continue to build selected ports
> [   ] I'm done for now
>
> dialog before proceeding to additional port installs.

Before we get into too many specifics about how this interactive  
ncurses interface would look, I'd be more interested in getting some  
more non-interactive commands added to MacPorts that would provide  
the information on which such an interactive interface would be  
based. To start with, in order to properly render the variants, we  
need MacPorts to be able to tell us not only what variants are  
available, but also what variants conflict with what other variants;  
what variants the port wants as defaults; and what variants the user  
wants as defaults.

Aaand looking at the ChangeLog, it looks like that's already in  
1.8.0, except for the default variants bit. So that's helpful. Do I  
have to parse the output of "port variants" to get it or is there  
more of an API that can be used?


> I don't know how macports handles upgrades with respect to etc file  
> changes but  gentoo has a nice "etc-update" program that allows you  
> replace, merge or ignore etc config files. This CAN be important.  
> But gentoo portage is also managing the "world" and thankfully we  
> have Apple taking care of basics.
>
> I mean, merging etc files remotely can be hair raising. Especially  
> when gentoo will upgrade everyFREAKINGthing if you don't tell it  
> not to and there are etc updates for like 30 files from fstab on.
> Who wants to recompile gcc for every minor update?
> And have it go wrong?
> Remotely?

MacPorts does nothing to help the user upgrade their config files in / 
etc. If a port is nice, it installs template config files the user  
can copy. If not, it installs the config file with its real name so  
that any port upgrade will wipe out the user's changes...


> That said, I love gentoo but moved to freebsd so I would have a  
> "base" that wasn't so fragile. But gentoo has many nice things  
> about it.
>
> Everything I will ever say will seem like child's play to some but  
> I frequently hear on this list things like "I've never used FreeBSD  
> Ports or I'm unfamiliar with Gentoo ebuild" so I'm just sharing  
> what little I know.

I appreciate your verbosity. :)