Re: [PATCH] Makefile: create an install-symlinks target

From: Brian Gernhardt <benji@silverinsanity.com>
Date: Jul 29, 2007, 23:44 UTC
Message-ID: <ADE1034F-2454-4249-8DCF-872C52CD471F@silverinsanity.com>
In-Reply-To: <85bqduvo5r.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>

On Jul 29, 2007, at 6:30 PM, David Kastrup wrote:

> a) this required the installation of additional software for a simple
>    task.

I would think it's preferable to have a single piece of software to manage these links than attempt to craft a custom solution for every package you install.

Show 5 quoted lines

> b) if the software worked using symbolic links, it would not know at
>    what level to make the links (namely create
>    /usr/local/share/man/man1 and link every file from
>    /opt/git/share/man/man1, but link the directory
>    /usr/local/share/git-core directly to /opt/git/share/git-core).

What stow does is to create a directory for every level where multiple packages have files or non-stow files exists. It would create a link at /usr/local/share/git-core because nobody else uses that directory. If there are other /usr/local/share/man/man1/* files, it would make a link for every file in the git version.

> Since the stuff is strictly an additional convenience not impacting
> any of the existing targets, I would not have thought it terribly
> controversial.

It's additional maintenance, mostly. I don't have an objection to it, although I also don't see a reason to include it.

> Is there a place other than the git list where one can provide patches
> that are not likely to end up in git.git?

You could make a repo at repo.or.cz, I think. Have different branches to maintain features and rebase them on top of master periodically. Or just any random web-page to publish raw patches.

My $0.02, ~~ Brian