[Nix-dev] Re: [PATCH 1/2] t/scons

[Marc Weber]

Excerpts from Peter Simons's message of Wed Jan 05 12:35:39 +0100 2011:
> Yes. Please note that this patch has been superfluous from the very
> beginning, because SCons doesn't have to be patched to accomplish that.
> Marc has admitted himself that this patch is unnecessary.
I agree. But it was kind of "you can get all jobs done using any touring
complete language". Because this patch makes some cases "work out of the
box" I still want it. Because I think that the scons author wants users
to be happy (that's why authors write software) I think he wants scons
to "just work". If you read the "bible" verbatim ... you will never be
happy.

> No. Eelco rejected Marc's patch,
Really. Did he? I thought his intention was to add a 3rd way to solve
this issue (a commonly used strategy in discussions where two parties
disagree). However I could'nt accept his patch because it will cause
unexpected behaviour when using stdenv overrides. So its causing
potential trouble. So hardcoding *any* PATH in scons is bad.
We agree. However I don't see why I should tell scons to take PATH
in the common case. This would add bloat thus it should be avoided.

> and so I refrain from forcing my preferred view on everyone else.
> Instead, I make the necessary changes in my local nixpkgs tree. I would
> respectfully request that you and Marc and everyone else who wants SCons
> to behave differently than it does to do the same: please make those
> changes in such a way that your preferred solution isn't forced on me.

Sure. We can all keep patches private. Let's go back to "linux from
scratch". Let's stop sharing patches !?

nixos/nixpxkgs has many users. So its unclear when a patch should be
kept private / forced on others.
The last stdenv-update was forced "on us" ?!
So ? Stop doing updates?

Peter: I asked you to provide a case where my patch is causing trouble
to you. Its common for all systems (cmake, configure, and most scons
build scripts) to pick up dependencies from PATH. Its what users do
expect (unless they read docs and then its like reading the bible:
subject to interpretation).

So I'm fine with giving scons a different name. But tell me again when /
why you want to use the "unpatched" scons (maybe in addition to the
patched scons)

I really missed that in the long discussion.

Sincerly
Marc Weber