[gobolinux-devel] Use flags specification

[Jonatan Liljedahl]

Michael Homer wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 6:33 AM, Hisham <hisham.hm at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 3:58 AM, Daniele Maccari <gobo.users at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  > Michael Homer wrote:
>>  >  > It would be silly to write that, since the flag definitely won't be
>>  >  > enabled by default. -gtk1 won't do anything unless you've already
>>  >  > enabled it yourself earlier in the file.
>>  >  > -Michael
>>  >  That's an interesting point. They're not *real* use flags then, since
>>  >  choosing to disable something doesn't actually disable anything, am I
>>  >  right here?
>>
>>  If they're not "real" in the sense that they are not Gentoo-equivalent
>>  use flags, then yes, they're not. But if they're not use flags, then
>>  what are they? I find it better to keep the name than to just invent a
>>  name and have to explain it to people like "well, they're basically
>>  like use-flags" every time. Keeping the name is also a way of giving
>>  credit to Gentoo. I don't consider the name misleading because of
>>  these implementation details.
>>
>>  Perhaps the best thing to do would be to:
>>  * disallow global negative flags in configuration files altogether.
>>  * have the "+" to be an implicit operator.
> It actually already is implicit; "foo" and "+foo" are equivalent. I
> don't mind which the canonical way to do it is.
> 
> I think it's still necessary to have - be available. It does make a
> difference with ChrootCompile, and when/if that becomes the default it
> will behave more or less as requested here. The issue is adding ugly
> recipe syntax we're obliged to support for backwards compatibility
> reasons later.
> 
> Flags can only make affirmative changes; otherwise, you get what
> configure gives you (the same as you do now). It's a more flexible
> system than there is now and it leaves options open for the future.
> Switching to a must-enable system could happen in the long term, but
> will just break expectations even further in the short and medium
> term.

Just to be clear, I didn't propose a must-enable system, but a
can-disable system. If neither -gtk nor +gtk is given, do nothing, and
configure will autoconf it if it should.

-- 
/Jonatan         [ http://kymatica.com ]