portupgrade O(n^m)?

[RW]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:17:00 -0800 (PST)
youshi10 at u.washington.edu wrote:


> I wasn't trying to port the pkg_* and port* utils to C++ thinking
> that I would magically get more optimized code. Sure, C++ is much
> better than ruby at optimizations if done correctly, but C++ is also
> easier to screw up than ruby or perl or python, because you have the
> power to shoot yourself in the foot easier (not as much as C or ASM,
> but close).

Surely that's the other way around, scripting languages are for "quick
and dirty", C and C++ are used for multi-million line projects.

> 
> The point was that with C++ we could finally get a set of
> standardized tools and a common interface for FreeBSD for managing
> ports / packages which could be included in the base system, not a
> bunch of little specialized tools and packages.

That sounds like Trebant advocacy to me. I'm all for giving the ports
system a more flexible API for port-tools, particularly in the area
of dependency management,but different people have different
priorities. I like having a choice. 

Just before I tried FreeBSD I tried Gentoo, and emerge tied itself in
knots trying to upgrade Gnome. I'm pretty sure that portupgrade would
have failed on that upgrade too, but based on its record with Gnome,
Portmanager would likely have taken it in its stride. OTOH it often
takes several times as long as an optimally fast solution, and most
people don't like that.