base platforms variable removal

[Rainer Müller]

On 2017-10-08 00:18, Joshua Root wrote:
> On 2017-10-8 08:56 , Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
>> Hello,  from the guide and the source code, it appears that the Portfile
>> platforms variable is not used at all.  As such, I’m unclear why lint
>> says it is an error to not have it.  Regardless, if there’s no use for
>> it now or in the future, I could put together a PR to remove it from
>> base.  Then at a later time, it could be removed from Portfiles.
> 
> It is informational like several other variables such as categories. It
> has been proposed to extend platforms to indicate which OS version a
> port does and does not work on, and use that to skip builds on the
> buildbot as well as replace all the manual 'return -code error "This
> port doesn't work on Tiger"' sort of stuff.

I agree with Joshua. The platforms option should eventually be used to
get rid of the pre-fetch phases that are now in use to catch unsupported
macOS releases.

https://trac.macports.org/ticket/15712

Rainer