Side effects?

[Ian Wadham]

On 01/02/2013, at 11:04 AM, Kevin Walzer wrote:

> Hmmm, seems port has learned some new tricks over the years that I wasn't aware of . :-) Kudos.

Another thing a GUI can do is encapsulate tricks like that, which are not
easy to find in "man port" unless you know they are already there … :-)

There is also the question of error reporting.  This list is full of users
getting into difficulties with Macports (which is where this thread
started IIRC) and time and time again we see "Attach a log", "Where
do I find a log?", etc.  Maybe a GUI could standardise some of what
happens when a build fails and save everybody some time.

Finally, I can remember my own first experiences with Macports.
I went straight for the jackpot --- "sudo port install kdegames4".
That would have been fine on the GUI I had used for years in Linux,
OpenSuSE Yast2, because all packages are binary and most
dependencies are in the initial Linux installation.

Some hours later … with a new Macbook Pro that was feeling
dangerously hot … and with vital notes re DBus and KDE-based
installations scrolling up faster than I could read them … all a
bit hair-raising for a newbie.  Luckily I was a hard-bitten veteran,
but new to the Macbook and Macports, so I did not panic ...

I think a GUI could, for example, check the dependencies and warn
if there are going to be a lot of them.  It could also retain notes
in a pane or under a button, to be ready for review when the install
is complete.

Well, my 2c … oh, and I just discovered, after about 18 months' use
of Macports, the "port notes" command, so please don't any CLI jockeys
point that out … :-)

Cheers, Ian W.

P.S. I *love* CLI, its brevity and sheer power, but GUI can open up
a whole new world to non expert users.  See:

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/microelectronicsandthepersonalcomputer
"Microelectronics and the Personal Computer", Scientific American,
Sept 1977, by Alan C Kay, the guy who started it all …  The article
still reads pretty well.