[pacman-dev] Misleading info when epoch is used

[Dan McGee]

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Nagy Gabor <ngaba at bibl.u-szeged.hu> wrote:
>> In fact I don't like neither force nor epoch. Epoch is just a version
>> prefix, why don't we let the packager to workaround this (KISS)? We can
>> introduce a new separator (now we have one: '.'), for example '#', and
>> let the packager define his favourite pkgversion (maybe epoch in mind),
>> like "1#0.6.2a-2". Epoch just complicates code and leads to "wtf"
>> imho...
>
> Well, of course a new separator is not necessary, packager can do
> everything with '.', e.g. he can use "1.0.6.2a-2". It is just more
> readable to the user (and the packager). The key here is that epoch is
> no more than a simple version prefix, and I think it is needless to
> introduce %EPOCH% database field etc.

Because this is ugly as hell and it will result in 100+ bug reports
and "why is the version number off" questions in the first year. KISS
applies both ways- keep the code simple, but keep developers lives
from becoming enveloped in the first level of hell, and this
suggestion would unfortunately do that. :/

-Dan