> Yes. And here another point should be brought up. This proposal should > be wider and consider similar changes for the most common used > operations on all phases.
And in fact, the most common used operations on all phases are already covered: Namely, this is the default implementation of the phase. Any change from this is not so common and should therefore be based on writing the function. Saving here some characters for typing the function header means to save at the wrong place by making everything less readable and less maintainable. (Moreover, in most cases, this would not even save some characters, because the variable names would have to be much longer...) Actually, too many variables with a predefined meaning are used in ebuilds already now. The original intention of ebuilds was that - in contrast to .spec-files or other stuff which are some sort of extended database - it should be simple pure shell code which everybody can easily read or write without filling in magic data. Things like WANT_AUTOMAKE=1.8 already violate this rule, but it seems hard to avoid it here, because IIRC there is no "src_depend()" function where the calculation of the dependencies could be done in a consistent manner. But the rule should not be violated without any serious need: If ebuilds consist only in setting magic variables, you can use .spec as well.
