Branching for 2.4

[Joshua Root]

On 2016-12-16 05:08 , Rainer Müller wrote:
> On 2016-12-15 16:39, Joshua Root wrote:
>> If nobody can think of anything else, I'll go ahead and create the
>> branch and tag beta1 this weekend.
>
> Some more thoughts on the current state of master:
>
> # port diagnose
>
> 'port diagnose' seems completely broken. The ports tree resources do not
> contain definitions for valid Xcode versions on macOS 10.11 or 10.12.
> Therefore the command errors out very early and is not useful. Overall,
> it looks like this was not tested at all recently.
>
> Do we still want to fix this and polish it for 2.4, or should we just
> skip this new feature for 2.4 and move it to 2.5?

I don't think there's any harm in shipping it as-is, as it's a single 
separate action that doesn't change anything. Best case we just need to 
add some more version info, worst case we can say that diagnose is 
experimental.

> # usealtworkpath / altprefix
>
> A few years ago I already proposed to rip out usealtworkpath and
> altprefix completely [1], but Joshua wanted to keep it for destroot
> testing. This feature is what enables building in user's ~/.macports
> without sudo.
>
> In my opinion there is no use for this feature anymore and it just adds
> unnecessary complexity. Now that trace mode is even working with SIP
> again, the 2.4 release would be a another opportunity to get rid of this.

I agreed that there was no more need for this after sandboxing was 
added. I wouldn't delay the release for it though. Call it deprecated in 
this release?

> # Update Tcl and other libraries
>
> We should update Tcl and the other libraries to the latest available
> version before branching. I held this back until we resolved PR#6 [2] first.

I guess you mean the latest Tcl 8.5.x. Probably a good idea.

- Josh