Joe Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:45:11 -0600:
> Ah, OK. I have been considering that "world" is simply a grandfathered > name for "@world" (and same for system). I.e. that "world" is also > specifying the world set, but that only world and system are allowed to > have the "@" dropped to avoid breaking things for users. Isn't that the > way the code treats it now? I believe that's the way it is now, yes. Thus what we're proposing would simply keep the legacy meaning for world (and system) as they are, while @world (and @system) would refer to the specific sets. Now that it has been suggested, I do believe that's the simplest way to handle it, since it would involve no change at all for the existing words. @system would of course be the same as system, but there'd be a slight difference between world and @world. I think that's still less confusing, however, because people who don't care about the new functionality wouldn't have to worry about it, while for those that do, world could be simply explained as a legacy special-case. Since the only people worried about the difference between world and @world would be by definition the folks learning the new functionality anyway, that single legacy corner-case, once documented, shouldn't be a big deal. People learning @world can be told not to worry about the world case anyway, and just remember that sets always get @, and they're @world view (hehe, punny!) will once again be consistent. But I'm not one of the portage devs implementing it, so I'm not the one making the rules how the implementation should work. Someone (or ones, plural, yes I know someones isn't a valid plural, but anyway) else gets to decide all that. =8^) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
