On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 07:07:51AM -0400, Okan Demirmen wrote: > Hi, > > Do we have a stance or policy one way or another with respect to -perl > sub-packages. They tend to go well with many ports that have other > similar sub-packages, but it's somewhat of a mix. Since perl is in base, > should we 'guide' towards no -perl sub-packages? Or the other way? Or > allow the porter to choose completely? > > Recently creating a -perl sub-package, it would seem I have an opinion, > but I really could go either way. > > Thoughts?
Subpackages are built for two reasons. - space concerns - dependency concerns. So yeah, perl is special. If the stuff is small enough (and it usually is), and doesn't pull in a lot of other perl stuff (say, a perl extension that would rely on DBI, for instance), it doesn't warrant a separate subpackage. As opposed to, say, python or ruby: - both drag significant dependencies - both may come with several versions in the ports tree, which makes things even slightly more complicated. This is not a question of politics or anything like that, it's just practicality. Perl is in base, it obviously won't move out, since a large chunk of the system tools depend on it, so creating subpackages for "equality with other languages" doesn't make any sense.
