cvs commit: ports/archivers/hs-zip-archive Makefile distinfo pkg-descr pkg-plist ports/devel/hs-binary Makefile distinfo pkg-descr pkg-plist ports/devel/hs-darcs/files patch-Setup.lhs patch-darcs.cabal ports/devel/hs-darcs Makefile distinfo pkg-d

[Gabor PALI]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Dmitry Marakasov <amdmi3 at amdmi3.ru> wrote:
> I still disagree with that - prefixes should indicate that the specific
> port is ONLY a module and is used ONLY for development and as a
> dependency - that's pretty clear and useful policy.

Haskell has its own distribution, we may interpret it as a
distribution within our (ports) distribution.  These end-user
applications are just parts of it.


> Thus while leaving PKGNAMEPREFIX=hs- for e.g. darcs, while having the
> port in devel/darcs will ease life for users who want to install it,
> this brings up other problems, such as not seeing expected darcs-X.Y.Z
> in pkg_info and not being able to do `portupgrade darcs-*`, so I really
> think it should not have any prefix at all, along with other end-user
> ports.

But where is the limit between a development tool and an end-user
application?  We might say that every development tool is an end-user
application (for programmers), and every end-user application is a
development tool (for non-programmers).  Please do not get me wrong, I
just do not support this way of classification, because it may make
the borders really fuzzy sometimes.

For a Haskell user, it seems exactly the opposite is true: she may get
confused when she tries to find something without an "hs-" prefix.
However, the virtual category "haskell" may help with this but it is
not visible in the output of pkg-info(1) (or it is?).

It also makes the update of the Haskell ports easier (by piggybacking
your example):

  portupgrade hs-*

It is because the Haskell ports are mostly tightly connected to each
other thanks to Haskell Cabal.  I do not know whether it is true for
others (like Python, Perl, etc.).

That is why I suggest to "share" popular ports like darcs, pandoc,
xmonad, and xmobar between the two audiences: Haskellers and causal
users of Haskell ports.  I do not know how to do this efficiently,
though.


Cheers,
:g