foo-snapshot / foo-diff convenience functions

[Rainer Müller]

On 10/20/2016 10:25 PM, René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> On Thursday October 20 2016 15:38:42 Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
> 
>> Better that than increasing the complexity of base and portfiles.
> 
> Yeah, unless someone proposes to implement something in a portgroup. Then all of a sudden it becomes base functionality ...

Port groups can be complex as long as that makes it easier to use the port group
in a Portfile. That is the whole point of port groups, eliminate redundancy and
make Portfiles concise.

However, port groups also have their limits of what can be implemented.
Functionality for all ports or extensions to the syntax should be in base.

Back to your proposal: in my opinion, such a syntax does not fit the declarative
style we commonly have in Portfiles. Previously we agreed more settings should
be declarative, but this would be a step backwards. In an ideal Portfile, port
groups are included by statements at the top of the Portfile and there is no
need to set anything before that.

Rainer