From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: ison <ison@airmail.cc>
Subject: Re: Parameterized packages
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2019 14:29:06 -0600
Message-ID: <20190719202906.lbanx5puk7t6q4cr@cf0>
References: <87woitz1xx.fsf@gnu.org> <87o945vze5.fsf@nckx>
 <8736ldq74z.fsf@netris.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Return-path: <guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:37192)
 by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.86_2)
 (envelope-from <ison@airmail.cc>) id 1hoZVo-0005ra-3L
 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:29:52 -0400
Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <ison@airmail.cc>) id 1hoZVf-0007ns-Hp
 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:29:48 -0400
Received: from mx1.cock.li ([185.10.68.5]:34891 helo=cock.li)
 by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32)
 (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <ison@airmail.cc>) id 1hoZVd-0007dH-Kx
 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:29:43 -0400
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <8736ldq74z.fsf@netris.org>
List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution."
 <guix-devel.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/options/guix-devel>,
 <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel>
List-Post: <mailto:guix-devel@gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guix-devel>,
 <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
Sender: "Guix-devel" <guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
To: Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org

On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 02:15:29PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Also, at present, the current 'properties' field can be changed without
> changing the derivation, and I think that's quite useful.  It's nice to
> be able to do things like increase the build timeouts on a core package,
> for the sake of a slow architecture, without forcing rebuilds of
> everything on top of that package on other architectures.
> 
> So, I would prefer to see a different package field used for this.

Just a suggestion: Could the field allow extra arguments without throwing
an error, and also without causing a rebuild if the arguments aren't used?
If so then users could emulate _global_ USE flags in their system config by
simply mapping all packages through a function to modify the parameters.

Such an idea also seems to call for some standardization of parameters
across packages.