[Nix-dev] Re: Git expression

[Marc Weber]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 04:31:29PM +0200, Peter Simons wrote:
> Pjotr Prins writes:
> 
>  > Do we need all that documentation in the git package?
> 
> Yes, I would like to have it installed. Unless, when I'm installing a
> server on which I don't really work interactively, then I want no
> extensive documentation installed. :-)
> 
> 
>  > Maybe we ought to split it out. Any policies in this regard?
> 
> My preferred solution is to be able to choose, i.e. I would like to set
> a "doc" option in .nixpkgs/config.nix. How about the following approach?
> 
>   getConfig [ "git" "doc" ] (getConfig [ "doc" ] false)
> 
> This way, users could set that 'doc' flag globally, but still override
> the setting per-package.
Which setting should the buildfarm has then?
Should it build both so that we still can fetch binaries?
So the best option would be:
Split each package into 2 or even three parts:
a) runtime stuff
b) documentation
c) dev stuff (header files and such)

Ways how this could be achieved:
a) rebuild 3 times removing not needed parts (expensive)
b) build once, copy only the files you need to a new derviation store
  path (then the not needed parts will be garbage collected)

Both can lead to trouble and more time to be spend on maintainance of
the packages..

Marc Weber