Python ports providing GNOME bindings

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Apr 15, 2010, at 15:02, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

> On Apr 15, 2010, at 9:43 AM, Eric Le Lay wrote:
> 
>> Somehow I had the impression that http://trac.macports.org/ticket/126
>> was implemented in registry 2.0.
>> My mistake...
> 
> The history of that Trac bug is fascinating.  Has it really been open for SEVEN YEARS?  Wow. :)

I remain unconvinced the "bug" should be fixed. If port A depends on port X+Y and port B depends on port X+Z then what? What if X's variants +Y and +Z conflict?

To take the example from the current thread, about which python version to use, we currently have the ability with our py*-* ports to install for multiple python versions simultaneously. If we switch to having a single port for each python module, we lose that ability. What if port A requires something that only works with python 2.5 and port B requires something that only works with python 2.6? Currently, we can handle that situation; if we change to use variants, we lose it.

IMHO we should be encouraging the removal of variants from ports (e.g. by moving choices into separate ports), not the proliferation of new variants.