Re: [PATCH resend] perl/Makefile.PL: teach makefiles about possible old Error.pm files

From: Chris Frey <cdfrey@foursquare.net>
Date: May 22, 2008, 16:43 UTC
Message-ID: <20080522164300.GA19765@foursquare.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0805221245240.30431@racer>

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 12:46:12PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> I do not see how it is _Git_ that breaks itself by repeated installs.  It 
> detects that there is an Error.pm.  Fine.  You _remove_ it while 
> installing Git.  Not fine.  Not Git's error.

I guess I take the view that anything _installed_ by git is a part of git. If git installs Error.pm, it can't expect the user to keep it around if he uninstalls that version of git.

The user can do the following, and not have any warning that he'll be bitten, and won't know what he did wrong. In fact, when I first saw this error, I thought it was a bug that was fixed in a point release.

	(slightly abbreviated for clarity, version numbers arbitrary)

	tar xjf git-1.5.4.3.tar.bz2
	cd git...  && ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/git-1.5.4.3
	make && make install
	stow git-1.5.4.3

	tar xjf git-1.5.4.4.tar.bz2
	cd git... && ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/git-1.5.4.4
	make	# git is built assuming git-1.5.4.3 will always exist
	make install

	stow -D git-1.5.4.3
	stow git-1.5.4.4

The user now has a broken git, and has no idea why. I don't consider the above to be unusual or user error.

- Chris