Re: macOS 10.11+ now using mksh by default

[Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%joyent.com@localhost>]

* On 2020-07-06 at 14:04 BST, Greg Troxel wrote:

> > > (and update README.MacOSX as well).
> > 
> > Someone else is welcome to do this, I vehemently dislike these READMEs
> > on the basis that it's better to have no documentation than have docs
> > that are either incorrect, obsolete, duplicated or in the wrong place,
> > or in the case of the bootstrap docs usually some combination of all
> > three.
> 
> I don't follow your rage at this.  Those files are in my view meant to say
> which versions of the OS can be used, and any other OS-specific things.
> 
> Where do you think this sort of thing ought to be documented instead? The
> pkgsrc guide doesn't AIUI talk about OS-specific issues.
> 
> And what's wrong about the mac one?  I've been trying to keep it up to date
> as things change sometimes.

It's just personal opinion, which is why I'd defer to someone else to
add this.

Personally I'd remove at least 95% of README.MacOSX, none of what I
see in there is actually relevant to a new user who wants to try out
pkgsrc on this OS.  Adding extra waffle in here adds cognitive cost,
and for someone like me, seeing a bunch of internal implementation
details going on about ABI or PureDarwin or SDKs is likely just to put
me off and go and use Homebrew instead where I can just copy/paste a
single command and get going.

For someone like me I need one thing and one thing only: what specific
things do I need on this OS to be able to run pkgsrc?  So if it were
me the entirety of README.macOS would be something like:

 * Here is what you need to bootstrap pkgsrc on macOS, links to
   downloading XCode or instructions on installing the Command Line
   Tools.

 * Explain OS-specific bootstrap options (though I'm pretty sure the
   whole macpkg thing is now obsolete).

 * Links to any binary package repositories for that platform for if
   they just want to try it out.

That's it.  Then maybe a link to the pkgsrc guide section on reporting
problems if they run into anything, and we can take it from there, as
either things are going to work in which case great, or they aren't in
which case it's likely someone who knows what they're doing will need
to take a look.

Again, personal opinion, which I'm sure many people disagree with ;)

-- 
Jonathan Perkin  -  Joyent, Inc.  -  www.joyent.com