From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 7 19:34:51 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx2.freebsd.org (mx2.freebsd.org [69.147.83.53]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 278F5106566C for ; Sun, 7 Oct 2012 19:34:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from opti.dougb.net (hub.freebsd.org [69.147.83.54]) by mx2.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2283155AB7; Sun, 7 Oct 2012 19:34:50 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <5071D95A.6020402@FreeBSD.org> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:34:50 -0700 From: Doug Barton Organization: http://SupersetSolutions.com/ User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD i386; rv:15.0) Gecko/20121001 Thunderbird/15.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Gmelin References: <20121007152428.11a6172e@bsd64.grem.de> In-Reply-To: <20121007152428.11a6172e@bsd64.grem.de> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.4.4 OpenPGP: id=1A1ABC84 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: General usefulness of option descriptions X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:34:51 -0000 First, it was totally inappropriate for eadler to change your option descriptions. I've fixed it for you. More below. On 10/07/2012 06:24, Michael Gmelin wrote: > Hi, > > This probably has been discussed before, but I think in many cases > using the default descriptions of OptionsNG is more harm than good. Absolutely correct. I can see *some* value in using standard descriptions when they are appropriate. But when these "standard descriptions" were first proposed I had two concerns, one that users would be bullied into using them (check), and two that they would be used in preference to better descriptions (check). > I converted security/libpreludedb to OptionsNG yesterday and > left in most of the descriptions and therefore overrode them. I did > that for a good reason, since I believe that the description of the > option should be more than just repeating the option name. > Unfortunately the portmgr FYI, eadler is just a committer. 'portmgr' is a different category. > One could argue that if a different description is necessary, a > different option name should be chosen. But this doesn't really work, > since the meaning to the ports tree in fact *is* that a dependency to > Perl or MySQL should be introduced, so using the global option names > makes sense. If one wants to install all ports with their Perl or MySQL > features enabled, just flipping that one switch should do it, regardless > of the exact meaning in the context of the port. You are correct. > 3. Global option descriptions seem inconsistent as well (all kinds > exist like support/backend/bindings etc., probably depending on the > first port that used them) and to make matters worse, they're > actually changing, e.g. bsd.options.desc.mk from 2012/08/31 said: > MYSQL_DESC?= MySQL backend > While the one from 2012/10/07 says: > MYSQL_DESC?= MySQL database > So even if using the default was contextually correct at some point, > it could just be changed without the maintainer noticing it. Again, correct. Excellent post, very well said on all points, I just picked particular ones that I wanted to emphasize. Doug -- I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. -- Edward Everett Hale, (1822 - 1909)