[Nix-dev] Re: warning if trying to install a package but it fails an assert.

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

"Nicolas Pierron"
<nicolas.b.pierron at gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 07:54, Andres Loeh <andres.loeh at googlemail.com> wrote:

>> The NixOS way to do this is to say: if we need subversion with perl
>> support, we better get subversion with perl support. There is no
>> reason whatsoever why all the functions that build individual packages
>> should be first order. So in this case, we should pass in a function
>> for subversion that can still be applied to the desired value of
>> perlBindings. So, if you say you want git with subversion support, and
>> you hadn't installed it so far, it will just pull it as a dependency.
>
> This problem has already been discussed on this mailing list months
> ago.  The ""summary"" of this discussion is that installing many
> versions of the same package could cause a huge in disk space because
> if you install subversion and git you will get two subversion installs
> for the same user.

I don't think we should worry about it.  Instead, we should make sure
Nixpkgs packages have "sane" defaults.  In that case, `perlBindings'
should default to `true', especially since Perl bindings probably don't
consume much disk space, and Perl can reasonably be considered
ubiquitous.

Thanks,
Ludo'.