Easy access to external repositories.

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Monday June 01 2015 13:07:45 Clemens Lang wrote:

> In the long term, this may become easier when (and if) we finish the SAT-solving
                                                                       ^^^
Translation?

> would be nice to [...] allow per package
> priority. But I do not know of any other production package management
> system that has implemented such a thing.

Well, looking at Linux for inspiration doesn't mean we have to do everything like them ...
Linux (at least APT) allows versioned dependencies, and user selection of the version to be installed for packages that are provided with different versions (even through a standard GUI like Synaptic).
MacPorts doesn't have versioned dependencies, and introducing would be hard as far as I understand were there to be willingness (which there isn't, again AFAIU).
If it's "easy" and acceptable to implement port directory priorities as opposed or in addition to repository priorities, that could provide a comparable form of user selection of port versions. Not just from foreign repositories: it's also perfectly possible (and maybe even supported) to have the svn port repository configured as a source of ports that tend to be updated much more frequently than the ones in the standard rsync repo. At least that's the impression I have. If that's not really the case, a per-port priority mechanism would make it possible to use the svn repo as a source for beta-testing certain port updates before pushing them to all users.

Am I rambling again? :)

R.