Discouraging variants [was: Re: port install efficiency issue]

[Anders F Björklund]

Shreevatsa R wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Ryan Schmidt  
> <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
>> Mac OS X is not Debian. The Mac way is to provide not as many  
>> options as
>> possible, but as few options as possible. Meet the needs of most  
>> of the
>> users with the default setup, and provide a few options for  
>> everyone else.
>>
>> As a consumer, I do not enjoy having to select amongst 37  
>> different types of
>> toothpaste at the grocery store. More choices is not always better.
>>
>> http://www.cafeaulait.org/images/remotes.png
>
> These are very good words! I couldn't agree more.
> This would be a good starting point to mention my pet peeve with
> MacPorts, which is the excessive use of variants.
>
> Ideally, all ports would enable by default all the features that users
> might want, and only leave as variants those features which are
> *definitely* undesirable to significantly many people (and definitely
> desirable for significantly many). Instead, some ports try to make
> every feature a separate variant. This is entirely unnecessary: disk
> space is cheap and shouldn't be considered a cost of enabling the
> feature by default.


I thought the whole point of doing Ports for Mac was to provide  
choice...

Why else would it require you to install Developer Tools and go mucking
about in the Terminal, if it wasn't that you *wanted* to choose things ?
Wouldn't you rather install the provided binary in the graphic  
interface,
and be happy with the choices that the vendor has already made for you ?

Blaming current bugs and shortcomings with variants on choice seems  
unfair.

--anders