From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Jun 22 2:26:20 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from ns1.yes.no (ns1.yes.no [195.204.136.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8B0C1529D; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 02:26:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from eivind@bitbox.follo.net) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [195.204.143.218]) by ns1.yes.no (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id LAA15052; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 11:26:08 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.8/8.8.6) id LAA86641; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 11:26:06 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 11:26:05 +0200 From: Eivind Eklund To: "Brian F. Feldman" Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: __FreeBSD_version hairsplitting [was Re: cvs commit: doc/en/handbook/ports chapter.sgml] Message-ID: <19990622112605.H81707@bitbox.follo.net> References: <19990621122224.S63035@bitbox.follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Brian F. Feldman on Mon, Jun 21, 1999 at 02:34:01PM -0400 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org [I'm moving this to -chat] On Mon, Jun 21, 1999 at 02:34:01PM -0400, Brian F. Feldman wrote: > On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 20, 1999 at 08:03:45PM -0400, Brian F. Feldman wrote: > > > But __FreeBSD_version is mainly for the ports system anyway! > > > > Disagree. __FreeBSD_version is mainly so any developer that maintain > > something outside the FreeBSD tree can be able to make it work with > > most versions of FreeBSD. In a way, it is a testimony to our > > ineptness at creating and maintaining good APIs. > > The ports system is the collection of programs for FreeBSD; No. The ports system is infrastructure to easily build, install, and uninstall a set[1] of programs for use under FreeBSD. This set is a small subset of the complete set of programs that can run under FreeBSD. > how does that not use __FreeBSD_version? Ports do that. And most of > the time, with any changes, it is not the API that changes but the > ABI. There are other mechanisms than __FreeBSD_version for handling that. __FreeBSD_version is for handling API differences; it is at source level. Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message