port "cask" -- installing prebuilt binaries

Herby G herby.gillot at gmail.com
Thu Aug 6 19:28:02 UTC 2020


> so far, name-suffix is winning on all fronts...with no downsides yet.

I don't plan on pushing the issue, but I have to say that I don't agree.

Using a name suffix isn't clean, as you may include other non-binary ports
that may happen to have the word "binary" in their name.

A category allows you a cleaner approach as you can now represent that a
port is binary as an _attribute_ of the port, rather than overloading the
name.

This will make it easier to write port utilities and commands that target
binary ports.

We can easily add an alias that could let you do things like "port -v
binary_only" which would transparently do the "category:binary".

Additionally, if using a category, you can see the list of binary ports in
a clean way when browsing ports in the MacPorts website, it makes it easier
to do things like add an icon to signify binary only if a given port is in
the "binary" category, and not make possibly mistaken assumptions off of
the name.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 3:02 PM Ken Cunningham <
ken.cunningham.webuse at gmail.com> wrote:

> category-only identifier is
>
> less clear and less obvious
> harder to remember how to search for
> name conflicts with a non-binary version (eg for newer systems that can
> build it)
>
> so far, name-suffix is winning on all fronts...with no downsides yet.
>
> K
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