Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:52:11 -0400 From: Jerry <jerry@seibercom.net> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Time to mark portupgrade deprecated? Message-ID: <20110725065211.35f2aa7d@seibercom.net> In-Reply-To: <1311588859.1812.104.camel@xenon> References: <CAF6rxg=TfxbKJwbcm6_c8P7m6%2B-pzvB9SpwKB99%2BLDe4OM%2BeLA@mail.gmail.com> <4E2D1C36.7060400@FreeBSD.org> <1311583851.1812.81.camel@xenon> <4E2D3A84.7020909@FreeBSD.org> <1311588859.1812.104.camel@xenon>
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On Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:14:19 +0200 Michal Varga articulated: > On Mon, 2011-07-25 at 02:42 -0700, Doug Barton wrote: > > Change is hard. :) > > In fact, that's the whole point of the story, ironically or not. > > > I have no objections to someone (or some group) choosing to maintain > > portupgrade. I've always said that I don't regard portmaster and > > portupgrade to be in competition. > > > > However if no one steps up to maintain it, portupgrade will > > eventually bitrot and become unusable. So for all of you saying > > "save portupgrade!" this is something you seriously need to > > consider. > > There is a difference in "saving" portupgrade and simply cold > murdering it from behind just because it's that particular time of > the month for a 'change' (cough). > > Believe or not, as a decade long user, I hated portupgrade from the > day one, and learned to hate it even more as the code base bloated and > everybody lost a slightest idea how it even holds together to the > point where it is today. I can still (though barely) remember times > when portupgrade was actually spending 95% cpu time on compilation > and rest on "fixing / saving / database / dependencies", in contrast > to the current 30% compilation time + 70% portupgrade database > fractal magic disco that nobody gets anymore. > > That said, I don't propose (nor volunteer, for the love of god) to > maintain portupgrade - I just say - leave it be. As was already said > before me - change the handbook/documentation, feel free to wipe all > tracks of portupgrade from it, that doesn't matter even slightest to > the current portupgrade user base, as we don't read that anyway. > > But I have machines and scripts that need to be kept up to date and > will need to be for years to come, and portupgrade is the current > mission critical tool for that. Change is hard, *especially* when > there is nothing broken with stuff that already works. > > "Unmaintained" portupgrade is not a security threat, it's not a > network service, it may have bugs that nobody cares about to fix > anymore, but most people [citation needed] don't care about them, > they're worked around for years, and a stable bug is almost as good > as a feature, isn't it? > > Again, as you said - portmaster is not a replacement for portupgrade. > I have no objections in its promotion to new users as the new, one and > only "approved" way of managing ports, but this in no way cuts it for > currently deployed portupgrade setups, where portupgrade works 'just > fine' (and can work the same for years to come). Deprecate it, or kill > it, and you will only force many current users to keep a local copy, > because it's still easier than a change. Is there any win in that? I have not seen any verified upside to removing "portupgrade" from the ports system, so while kill it. While we are on the subject of port management tools, I still use "portmanager" when a version bump on a port requires that a massive number of dependencies be rebuild. I have had all too many instances when both "portupgrade" and "portmaster" simply bombed out and left me with only a partially updated system, and in many cases, a virtually useless one. Portmanager would simple get the job done right the first time. It might be overkill for one or two port upgrades; however, it works fine on massive projects that seem to bewilder the other two competing contenders. The "p5-libwww-5*" example in the case of "portmaster" being a perfect example. Just my 2¢. -- Jerry ✌ jerry+ports@seibercom.net Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __________________________________________________________________
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