Re: pkgng 1.0 release schedule, and HEAD switch to pkgng by default schedule

On 21/08/2012 22:15, Doug Barton wrote:

> And in this case, it doesn't matter how awesome the new tools are, they
> are a MAJOR paradigm shift for how users interact with ports, and we are

Unless I've missed something, pkgng is actually *zero* paradigm shift
for users familiar with *ports*, and here's why: people using ports can
and will continue to use ports the way they are used to. AFAIK, the
infrastructure which registers port installation is already there and
there are also patches for portupgrade and portmaster which make them
interact nicely with the new package database.

The only important aspect of this is that the actual package database
format changed (IMO, immensely for the better) and there are several
other port management utilities which may need to be changed. People who
got used to manually altering the old text-based package database will
learn either not to do it anymore, since whole classes of errors have
now become impossible to have, or learn how to do it with the new format.

Can you explain what you mean as the "paradigm shift" for ports users here?

OTOH, people using *binary packages* (the very few and miserable users
that they are since the old binary package infrastructure has sucked for
the last decade or so), will get their world turned upside down, but for
the better, and hopefully grow in numbers.