gtk2 compiling problem

[markd at macports.org]

Michael <gmichaelt at gmail.com> writes:
>There should be a bit more specificity about the assumptions made at your
>end,
>or the scope of what interests you. 10.3, implicitly does (at the
>moment), else
>there wouldn't be a version specific to it available. But there's a
>forgotten
>ignorance at play when macports.org sternly refers to installing XCode
>2.4.x,
>which, it turns out, requires 10.4.2 or higher. One hand should know what
>the
>other is doing. Or phrase things in less absolute terms e.g.
>"ideally,...",
>etc.. I still wonder whether various parts of the latter version of XCode
>(e.g.
>the X11 SDK) can be installed over that version supplied with XC 1.5...

This describes a perfect world.  In this one even the deep pockets puts
less effort into products towards the end of their life cycles.  The
document you are referring to was only recently made, so the top priority
for docs was our largest installed base.  Now the top priority is
completion of a comprehensive documentation (the new guide) , which
happens to be common to all platforms.  The news docs have been
progressing steadily and may be mostly feature complete fairly soon.  At
that time tweaking them so they document 10.3 would be fine, though it may
require some contributions from people still on 10.3 and that may not
happen.  But spending time trying to do it now would be negligent since it
would make most of our users wait to have even feature completed rough
documentation for a few users.  If this weren't a volunteer projects
priorities could be very different, but in fact they often aren't.
>
>> Yes, the install docs don't cover 10.3.
>
>If you keep a last-but-one version (1.4, from what I can see at the
>moment), is
>it so hard to archive complete prior versions - docs and all - and make
>them
>available on a yer-on-yer-own basis?

When we get docs that are even roughly feature complete that would be
possible, but the fact is (at least in my opinion) that the Mac community
is very, very agressive about upgrading.  And I think this is a departure
from the communities surrounding the other Unices. We also don't support
intalling previous versions of ports and such for similar reasons I think.
 Our community is different than the others.  I like the fact that our
community spends more time on new stuff than old, and I happen to think
this is a weakness of some of the other Unix communities.  That's why our
ports tree tend to have newer ports than the others, the reason I came to
MacPorts in the first place.  All these things supply context to be
considered when one says how things "should" be.  To perform that "should"
requires not doing some things we are doing now.  So "should" requires
votes behind it before it carries any weight.  :)

>A single locus of info would be a great improvement all around - ideally
>on a
>single site, but at least something that's been vetted by the same set of
>eyeballs, or managed, in toto, by one person or group with a stylesheet
>in mind!

Check.  The new guide is vetted by one group and has a single CSS
stylesheet.  The InstallingMacPorts Wiki page is actually unnceccessary
now, but I'm waiting to see how we rearrange our web site.  Or if that
takes too long I'll delete the Wiki page and replace it with a link to the
new guide that now contains all the information right at the top.
>
> Metastasizing FAQs don't help in an already complicated, detail-fussy
>matter.
>I'm hoping the info at the link above will eventually be everywhere, or
>the only
>"there".

All true.  I don't like the current FAQs either.  I hope many parts may be
also deleted after the new guide is done, and the few remaining can be
reformatted and clarified.  After that, having a different look and feel
for the FAQ is not a bad thing because people should know they are not
reading official docs.  So in the main, I think we'll get down to one
guide, one FAQ on the Wiki, some news related stuff on the Wiki, and very
little else.  
>
>I'm heartened to see that the above link begins with a description of the
>'what
>it is' variety - something that's very difficult to find, ironically, on
>the
>macports.org site.

I think the "what it is" type of information is lacking in the whole Unix
app world in general.  I think it is fairly rare actually.  And we know
the MacPorts site needs work badly and we're actively seeking those who
can redesign it.  For free, of course, so it limits the prospective
candidates a bit.  :)

Mark