[arch-projects] [namcap] Question about transient dependencies
Hello developers, Does anyone know why namcap considers transient dependencies a good thing? The terminology I use might be a bit confusing - I'm thinking of "dependency-covered-by-link-dependence" I've had a quick look through the namcap code, plus the wiki but could not see anything. I do agree that it does make the dependency chain a lot shorter. At the same time the respective package does depend on it directly, hence it should be in the list? FWIW most/all other distributions already do so - Fedora, Debian, Suse and others. Can anyone share some light on the topic? References to previous discussions or any reading material will be appreciated. Thanks Emil
There are many little details about Arch that are left in the hands of the maintainers, because setting a hard policy would involve far too much pointless bikeshedding. You have found one of these. There is no hard policy and maintainers can do whatever they feel is a good best practice. -Kyle http://kmkeen.com
Hi Kyle,
On 8 August 2017 at 17:59, keenerd
There are many little details about Arch that are left in the hands of the maintainers, because setting a hard policy would involve far too much pointless bikeshedding. You have found one of these.
I think I've already found another topic where a hard policy is missing (to avoid bikeshedding?)/ I'll keep that for another day ;-) So I take it the topic has not been covered(attempted?) before? Would it be too much if a newcomer to start such a thread?
There is no hard policy and maintainers can do whatever they feel is a good best practice.
Considering other distributions seems to have found the way forward, wouldn't it be better to attempt the same in Arch? I mean, sure we are emotional creatures, but above all we're educated, technical individuals. Sure some maintainers may be annoyed at first, but the goal is to make Arch better not to offend them. Simply list pros/cons for each one and form a decision? Thanks Emil
Above all we're grown-ups who can weight the pros and cons on a case by case basis and make their own decisions as appropriate. I'm glad that Arch Linux has gotten so good that this is the worst issue you can find, but that doesn't mean it is worth "fixing". Furthermore, I refuse to be trolled into bikeshedding over how to best remove anti-bikeshedding measures. -Kyle http://kmkeen.com
On 8 August 2017 at 23:20, keenerd
Above all we're grown-ups who can weight the pros and cons on a case by case basis and make their own decisions as appropriate. I'm glad that Arch Linux has gotten so good that this is the worst issue you can find, but that doesn't mean it is worth "fixing".
Agreed it's not the biggest issue in the world. I've had official packages break as somewhere down the tree dependency X was removed. That I believe it something that should be fixed in it's root. To my earlier question - "has it been discussed before" a clear "no, it hasn't" would have been great. A "newcomers are not the best people to start such threads" would also suffice.
Furthermore, I refuse to be trolled into bikeshedding over how to best remove anti-bikeshedding measures.
By being humble and sincere my reply comes as trolling? Sounds like you had to deal with a bit too many trolls. So be it. Emil
On 2017-08-08 18:59, keenerd via arch-projects wrote:
There is no hard policy and maintainers can do whatever they feel is a good best practice.
That could be said about many other warnings that namcap issues. Transient dependencies are a real problem, and bugs about suddenly missing dependent packages happen every now and then. The lack of policy on anything is not much different from eating own tail. Bartłomiej
participants (3)
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Bartłomiej Piotrowski
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Emil Velikov
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keenerd