[arch-general] Default value of "j" in makeflags of makepkg.conf

[Anatol Pomozov]

Hi

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 6:55 AM, Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday 03 Jan 2014 15:33:05 Martti Kühne wrote:
>> Because I have a strong opinion about this. Also to prevent people
>> from running into this who are not that experienced in making things
>> work.
>
> If someone makes more than a few packages, they will have encountered makepkg.conf, to
> at least set their e-mail address.  When I started using Arch, I think I discovered
> makepkg.conf and added the -j to makeflags pretty much on day one of experimenting with
> PKGBUILDs.  But I think it comes down to this:
>
> 1) If someone knows that the -j flag exists, it won't take them long to figure out how to add
> it to makeflags, and then the responsibility is with them to ensure they know it can (rarely!)
> break some builds.
>
> 2) If the -j flag is added by default, builds may break unpredictably, and users will not know
> why.  They may not be aware of -j, and may not make the connection to makepkg.conf at all.
>
> Option 1 seems a safer default to me.  However, I think this should be properly documented
> in makepkg.conf: there should be an actual suggestion to add -j, along with a warning that
> in rare cases it may cause breakage.  Just a single-line comment, possibly with a link to the
> wiki, would be enough.

But there always will be people who uses -jN (e.g. me). If we decide
to keep broken PKGBUILD in AUR forever then it means sooner or later
-jN people will be hit by this issues. So the choice is really:

1) Keep the broken packages forever and care only about -j1 people
(who is majority now).
2) Make -jN by default. It will speedup compilation but it also make
the broken packages more visible.

IMHO #2 is better. It is better to highlight all the broken PKGBUILD
and fix it thus make it working for everyone.