From owner-freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Thu Feb 11 21:42:52 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4036FAA5CD1 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:42:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsdml@marino.st) Received: from shepard.synsport.net (mail.synsport.com [208.69.230.148]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 20B2013B0; Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:42:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsdml@marino.st) Received: from [192.168.1.21] (248.Red-83-39-200.dynamicIP.rima-tde.net [83.39.200.248]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by shepard.synsport.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7A8C43B9B; Thu, 11 Feb 2016 15:42:47 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Removing documentation To: Matt Smith , Lev Serebryakov , FreeBSD Mailing List , Kevin Oberman References: <56B754A8.3030605@marino.st> <56BCE01D.4010701@FreeBSD.org> <20160211213207.GA1243@xtaz.uk> From: John Marino X-Enigmail-Draft-Status: N1110 Message-ID: <56BD0054.1000700@marino.st> Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 22:42:44 +0100 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20160211213207.GA1243@xtaz.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:42:52 -0000 On 2/11/2016 10:32 PM, Matt Smith wrote: > Remember that before portmaster we had cvsup which was written in > Modula-3 and portupgrade which is written in Ruby. Whilst it is nice > that portmaster is just a simple shell script with no dependancies > that's a relatively new thing. I'm familiar with the M3 situation (I actual maintain the M3 port which came in after CVS was removed) and I understand why people are gunshy about obscure languages. I don't think this is a comparable situation though. A broken Synth cannot leave the system in a bad or unrecoverable state. One could remove it and it's products in a second and the machines that used it would continue as normal. There are alternatives (ports, official packages, poudriere, portmaster, etc) so there's no critical path. I'm always aware (and was bitten by) portupgrade and ruby. I know why people wouldn't want that again. Still the situation cannot be compared to Synth. Portmaster was good in that it didn't have its own database and used the ports framework. Poudriere also does that and now Synth, so it's no longer unique in that aspect. Dependencies matter if it's part of a bootstrap process or maybe part of base or in a critical path, but I don't think any of that applies in this case. John