Steven J. Long <sl...@rathaus.eclipse.co.uk> wrote: >> >> > It will probably also cause confusion for comaintainers and >> > collaborators, especially when INSTALL_VERSION points to a version >> > that has already been removed. > > So use another name that can't be confused.
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding: I did not understand that the confusion is caused by the name, but by the lack of information about its entries: For instance, if you bump a version, you must never forget to check whether this variable needs to be updated. Moreover, if you want to update that variable, you should understand precisely why which version is listed here in order to decide whether a recompile from that version might be needed with the current bump or not. This decision is not necessarily easy if the corresponding referred ebuilds are already in the CVS attic. Of course, if in doubt, it is a safe strategy to always remove that variable (it can only cause redundant compilation, while it can be fatal if you leave a version falsely). Therefore, an automatism to "forget" this variable automatically if not changed would be preferrable, but one would need a mechanism for this (I have only some strange ideas for such a mechanisms: One could encode the current ebuild version into the name of that variable; or one could require that the current version is the first entry in this variable [although, semanatically, it is ignored and just serves as a "proof" that the ebuild maintainer checked that variable]).
