Removing documentation

[Royce Williams]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 11:17 AM, John Marino <freebsdml at marino.st> wrote:
> On 2/11/2016 9:08 PM, Royce Williams wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 10:33 AM, John Marino <freebsdml at marino.st> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2/11/2016 8:25 PM, Lev Serebryakov wrote:
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>>>> On 07.02.2016 17:28, John Marino wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ports-mgmt/synth.  I would love to hear what signficant thing
>>>>> portmaster can do that Synth can't.  (honestly)
>>>>  Be installed FROM PORTS without all this build-one-more-gcc stuff.
>>>> Ada? For *port*management* tool? Are you joking?
>>>
>>> Let me guess.  You've spent actually 0.0 nanoseconds preparing on the
>>> subject before providing this enlightened take for the list.
>>
>>
>> Having read the entire thread, separate from the relative merits of
>> Synth, the core of Lev's incredulity isn't that off the mark.
>>
>> On the face of it, Synth requiring ncurses seems reasonable ... but
>> its Ada dependency is a bit of a mild POLA violation.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong -- I actually think Ada is pretty cool, and Lev
>> could have been nicer about it ;), but he's essentially right.
>>
>> People's instincts are that software management is core functionality,
>> and should have few unusual dependencies.
>>
>> My earlier side-thread point stands.  FreeBSD software management is
>> fragmented.  Until that is resolved, a lot of time and effort will be
>> wasted treating the symptoms.
>
> Actually, you missed the fact that synth (nor poudriere) doesnt
> re-invent anything.  Both are tightly integrated with pkg(8). You spoke
> of both as if they were similar to portupgrade.
>
> The "wrapper situation" that you proposed is already here.  So the whole
> "fragmented" thing is not really true.

Is the abstraction is happening at the equivalent level here? The
platforms that I'm thinking of -- that appear to have already solved
this entire class of problem long ago -- feature wrappers around
apt-get, not wrappers around dpkg.

I'm advocating that we stop quasi-providing four different flavors of
apt-get.  Until there is a single and official mechanism for both
dependency resolution and configuration option management, the
fragmentation remains.

> Synth is a binary.  There's no POLA there.

If there were no ports system, and everything was package-driven, I'd
agree.  Synth and its cousins exist because people work from ports --
which means that dependencies matter.

> There's no requirement to build from ports, that's an unsubstanciated
> invention.  Notice that not a single person could defend that position
> after a challenge.  There's no technical basis for it; it's just emotional.

The laissez-faire "there's no requirement to build from ports" that
permeates FreeBSD is exactly what's wrong.  The fact that half of the
documentation and quasi-official tools tell people "hey, use one of
these three ports management tools, or maybe packages, pick what works
for you -- oh, and be sure to check /usr/ports/UPDATING every time you
touch any port or package" is a deep symptom of this fragmentation.

> In a straight fly-off against any of the tools, Synth wins hands down
> with any objective measurement.  Poudriere is slightly more bulletproof
> and more appropriate for a cluster (as it was targetted at) but for
> average user Synth is better suited.
>
> It's a concurrent builder.  Ada is a concurrent language.  How is its
> suitability even a debate?

Because FreeBSD software management itself is not purely package based.

As long as the ports system exists (and I think it should!), the
management of compilation requirements -- especially for something
that might need to be bootstrapped early, like a software management
tool -- is a valid topic.

To be clear: except for the Ada/ruby/whatever dependency chain, my
beef isn't with Synth qua Synth.  It's that every time we spin up Yet
Another Optional Software Management Tool, we fragment further.  If
Synth becomes the holy grail of package management -- so compelling
that it becomes the only choice people would want to make, which is
what I think we need -- then it should become part of base.

If that happened, would we want to ship with Ada in base?  If not, why not?

Royce