Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] package removal

[Tony Theodore]

2010/1/16 Volker Grabsch <address@hidden>:
> Marcel Wysocki <address@hidden> schrieb:
>> i guess it would be useful to be able to remove
>> installed packages together with their dependencies.
>
> I'm not convinced that implementing this would
> be a sensible thing. See below.
>
>> all it would need would be the following:
>>
>> during installation:
>> 1) write down every file the package installs into
>>     intalled/packagename
>>     easiest way to achieve this would be a find
>>     before and after installation
>
> This still requires you to get the "make install"
> right in the first place. However, if "make install"
> works correctly, there's nothing wrong with simply
> installing things over.
>
> In my experience, when you get a package to work,
> a subsequent "make clean && make" will work almost
> always flawlessly.
>
> The moments where this isn't the case are so rare that
> they don't justify the hassle of implementing a package-
> uninstall.

I've often thought that mingw-cross-env could evolve into a
ports/packages system for windows. Adding features like uninstall
would be a step in that direction, but would reduce the simplicity of
a sane, repeatable build system.

>From the perspective of a build system, make clean is probably the
best "uninstall" mechanism. You can selectively build a list of
packages if you're trying to reduce disk usage or compile time,
otherwise, you don't really need to care about what is installed. I'd
say this is probably the main feature of mingw-cross-env, you can
treat it like a black box with a minimal api.

Having a way to exclude packages from the build *may* be useful
though. Something like:

make no-qt no-wxwidgets

would be good for someone who uses gtk and a long list of other
libraries, but rm works well enough.

Tony