Info about port variants

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 21, 2008, at 21:51, paul beard wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Rainer Müller wrote:
>
>> Kendall Shaw wrote:
>>
>> > I think it would be nice if there was more than a token  
>> describing port
>> > variants. For example, when I see the "server" variant of mysql5, I
>> > don't know if that means some sort of bare-bones version, or if  
>> it means
>> > that it's configured to start automatically. I gather it's the  
>> later,
>> > but it would be nice to have it stated explicitly what it does.
>>
>> Usually, look at 'port variants $portname'. In case of mysql5,  
>> there is
>> no variant description for +server, so you would have to look at the
>> Portfile itself (in various ways, 'port (cat|file|edit)  
>> $portname') to
>> find out more.
>
>
> I get the feeling that MacPorts is becoming less friendly as it  
> goes along. Do any of these questions get re-factored into RFEs?  
> Yes, I know it's a volunteer project, but I have to think  that  
> some of the questions are pointing out some things that could be  
> improved.

You're welcome to file an enhancement request in the issue tracker.  
But this particular request would be rather involved. It would  
require the authors of all ports to make their variant descriptions  
more explicit. We only added variant descriptions of any kind fairly  
recently, and many ports still don't have any variant descriptions.  
Also, half of our ports are unmaintained. So there are a number of  
problems getting this request implemented.

We also don't have enough people making things happen in the project.  
There are many good suggestions for both port and base improvements  
in the issue tracker that aren't getting handled because nobody takes  
it upon themselves to handle it. The existing set of committers can  
only do so much.