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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-dev]  Re: Re: [RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for
From:       Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh () googlemail ! com>
Date:       2008-08-31 12:30:44
Message-ID: 20080831133044.4ed4bc5f () googlemail ! com
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On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:29:16 +0100
Steve Long <slong@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> > Except that that's not what it's being used to mean. It's being
> > used to mean "the cost of selecting this when doing dependency
> > resolution cost analysis is zero", which is an entirely different
> > thing.
> >
> So it's zero-resolution-cost now? 

No, the overall cost in resolution is potentially non-zero. But the
cost of selecting it for an install when resolving it is zero.

> Yes, that *is* different (although
> I'd use free-resolve. "free" is well understood as often meaning
> "zero-cost," which isn't a phrase most English-speaking people use.
> It only has meaning within the PROPERTIES variable, so it's not going
> to clash with anything.)

free means lots of things.

> > Users don't need to see it. Heck, most developers don't need to see
> > it.
> > 
> Well any dev using it will do, and I believe most of them start out as
> users. Anyone reading the ebuild will see it, and the fact that it's a
> well-understood term, within Gentoo at least[2], makes it easier for
> the PM user-base to work with.

virtual is a well-understood term that does not mean what the property
being discussed will mean.

> It's a cultural "people understand this already" point as opposed to a
> technical make-it-as-explicit-as-we-can one.

And with this 'understanding' comes lots of misconceptions about what
it means. 'virtual' implies lots of things that this property does not.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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