Hi Andrew,
Andrew Fresh wrote on Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 05:34:40PM -0700:
> On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 03:30:39PM -0700, Andrew Hewus Fresh wrote:
>> There do appear to be some annoyances with still shared directories for
>> man pages, in that if you install a CPAN module and then attempt to
>> pkg_add it, it complains because "files already exist" in the man
>> directory. We could separate the cpan man pages, or I think un-setting
>> the site_lib man*dir will mean cpan won't instal them. I haven't yet
>> tested that, but I'm not sure what would be best there.
If i understand correctly, this is all about making installation of
un-ported Perl modules work better and reducing clashes between doing
that on the one hand and between package installation with pkg_add(1)
on the other hand.
Who will profit most from that? I guess very experienced Perl users
and porters who play around a lot with many different Perl modules
and with very large Perl programs, in particular when evaluating
whether those large programs are worth porting. Not having manual
pages installed for dependencies while trying to get a complicated
program to work and while trying to understand it seems like a
disservice to me. So "un-setting the site_lib man*dir" doesn't
strike me as particularly convincing on first sight.
I guess ordinary users are less likely to use this route, they are more
likely to just use pkg_add(1). But if they do, for whatever reason,
not getting manual pages is not good for them, either.
So i think in the long term, installing those manual pages into their
own manpath outside /ust/local/man/ would seem desirable to me.
I'm not saying it needs to be done in the same commit; sorting that
out can certainly be a later step.
You suggest to make the sitelib directory versioned. Consequently,
i guess that you want the following process to work:
1. install base and arbitrary numbers of packages
2. install lots of modules and programs from CPAN for evaluation
3. install the next Perl version outside base to figure out what
needs to be done to ultimately move base to it
4. install various modules for the new Perl from step 3
for testing purposes
If i got that right, then the new man directory needs to be versioned
just like the new sitelib directory, or the manual pages from steps 2
and 4 will clash just like the libraries from steps 2 and 4 would.
The price to pay, of course, is that you need to edit man.conf(5)
for each new Perl you install. And not just you, the base system
Perl maintainer, but all users installing stuff from CPAN.
On the other hand, if working with two different Perl versions in
parallel is not a requirement (for example because people do testing
like in steps 3 and 4 on separate machines?), then i don't see why
either the sitelib or the new man dir needs to be versioned at all,
making everything simpler.
Yours,
Ingo
