On Jan 17, 2008, at 10:44 AM, Philip K.F. Hölzenspies wrote:
My point was actually about a Portfile of a very specific version of perl (5.8.8),
Macports doesn't do fine grained version control (yet?). There is no port for perl that is specifically 5.8.8 (there is a perl5.8 port that currently happens to be version 5.8.8)
Absolutely true. However, when Apple shifts broken software, it does so with a version of the OS. Tiger contained a funky version of libgmp IIRC, in which case the libgmp Portfile for the version installed on Tiger would NOT exempt from installing when on a darwin 8 platform.
Yes, macports could work around every possible broken configuration in order to do what you're requesting, but most maintainers (who are just volunteers) don't have the time to do this. Additionally, when the systems change (and are suddenly broken in new ways in a new version) the macports port won't work under your plan unless/until a maintainer updates them. Under the macports strategy you need to spend a little extra time compiling stuff, and a little extra disk space to hold it, but things are less likely to break unexpectedly. -- Daniel J. Luke +========================================================+ | *---------------- dluke@geeklair.net ----------------* | | *-------------- http://www.geeklair.net -------------* | +========================================================+ | Opinions expressed are mine and do not necessarily | | reflect the opinions of my employer. | +========================================================+