On Tue, 2002-12-24 at 23:29, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:

> I wonder why we don't change the update process from
> 
>     deinstall --> build --> install
> 
> to 
>     build --> deinstall --> install

  As Thomas pointed out, some packages don't like finding their own
headers/libraries/executables already installed when configuring or
building.  For headers and libraries, buildlink2 should avoid this
problem, but there might still be the odd executable that may cause
troubles.

  Also, it probably won't help a lot to just rebuild the package that
you "make update" for, before deinstalling.  You'd need to completely
rebuild all dependencies as well.  This means that the whole update
target would need rewriting to become a two pass procedure.

  This isn't trivial to do right, especially since any package on the
way might find that some of its prerequisite packages are too old and
need updating as well, together with the subtrees that depend on that. 
This makes it very difficult to avoid duplicate installs and ensure the
right order of builds.

  I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is certainly quite complex to
do right.

  Cheers
      ,
   Rene