Why does everybody switch to dynamic plists?

Kirill Ponomarew krion at voodoo.oberon.net
Fri Jan 21 12:35:47 PST 2005


On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 08:52:02PM +0100, Alexander Leidinger wrote:
> can someone please tell me why people enjoy to use dynamic plists, even
> when there was a static plist already?
> 
> With a dynamic plist:
>  - We lose the ability to search for files which aren't installed.
>    (useful for users)
>  - We lose the ability to determine if a particular port contains what
>    we search.
>    (useful for users)
>  - We lose the ability to check just with grep if two ports install
>    conflicting files (in case we get a report of a conflict it's very
>    nice to not need to install a port to verify the conflict).
>    (useful for users and port developers)
>  - We lose the ability to use portlint to check the plist (if the
>    maintainer checks the generated one he just can use a static plist).
>    BTW.: Does portlint know how to check the embedded plist (the
>    Makefile variables)?
>    (useful for port developers)
>  - We lose the ability to maybe answer support requests without the need
>    to install the software.
>    (useful for "the frontliners")
>  + We don't need to take care if the plist changes.
>    (useful for port developers)
> 
> I count 1 positive and 5 negative aspects.
> 
> If the developer of a port puts the dynamic plist generation into a
> Makefile target instead of inlining it into the build/install process,
> he doesn't needs to put alot more effort into the development process
> (just one "make <generate-the-plist-target>") and gets the benefits of
> static plists too.
> 
> Maybe I've overlooked something, but so far I haven't seen a dynamic
> plist which needs to be a dynamic one. So I think at least 99% of our
> dynamic plists don't need to be dynamic.

Just from my experience - dynamic plists are evil.

-Kirill


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