Re: [tlug] [OT] plonk [Re: Classes]

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

On Tue, 29 May 2012 22:52:37 +0900
Edward Middleton <edward.middleton@example.com> wrote:

> > I regularly compile stuff myself, but i hardly ever build packages.
> > Mostly because i think it's unnecessary overhead and second because
> > stow is enough for those cases i really need bleeding edge stuff.
> 
> Packages make great executable documentation about how you compiled and 
> installed a piece of software.  This is something you want when you have 
> to reinstall, upgrade to a new system or when something upgraded on the 
> system breaks the software you installed.  You could document what you 
> did but thats usually more effort.

I know. But these days, compiling software is hardly difficult.
The three line incantation of ./configure && make && make install
does it in 99.9% of the cases. So documentation is hardly necessary.
The only thing i document is what software version i used, but that
i encode in the directory name of stow. With that and my archive of
downloaded sources, it's not a problem to rebuild anything if needed.

The only diffiulties i've ever encountered in recent years were python
packages. But after the last i decided not to build anything python
related myself if i can avoid it. So that problem is solved too ;-)


			Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?