[Nix-dev] [Nix-commits] [NixOS/nixpkgs] c6a2a1: ffmpeg: Update to latest version 0.11.1.

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

On 24/07/12 12:09, Vladimír Čunát wrote:

> Right, ffmpeg changes should IMHO be in a separate branch anyway (e.g.
> stdenv),

Not stdenv.  It's better to keep separate concerns in separate branches.

> there are loads of transitively affected packages. Moreover,
> the compatibility between ffmpeg branches seems low (no easy branch
> switching here).

Yeah, ffmpeg is not very good about backwards compatibility.

> What do you (anyone) think about the kind of solution I tried in
> https://github.com/vcunat/nixpkgs/commits/vlada/video2 ? Would this be
> acceptable?

I don't like passing version arguments to package functions because it's not
clear from the function interface what values are acceptable (i.e. for the
ffmpeg function, you have to read the source to see what values of "branch" are
allowed).

> Most importantly, I really dislike having several almost identical
> expressions in the repository. Those for ffmpeg should IMO only differ
> in some 2-5 lines and the rest is common, so I would prefer to solve
> such situations similarly like I did, by conditioning.

Well, that often actually makes it harder to manage, because if you (say) add a
new version, you have to think very carefully if this won't break the old
versions.  If the old versions are separate expressions, you don't have this
problem.  It's also harder to read the expression because it's cluttered with
"if version == ... then ..." clauses.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | LogicBlox, Inc. | http://nixos.org/~eelco/