Re: What to do when udpating a package ?

[Julien Lepiller]

Le 15 mai 2020 03:20:06 GMT-04:00, Edouard Klein <address@hidden> a écrit :
>Dear Guix Developers,
>
>I have a few beginner questions.
>Attached to this email you will find the "reverse-package" graph of
>python-prompt-toolkit.

Hi,

In general, some packages on master may fail to build. We try to fix these, but 
it's not always easy.

When updating a package, you should make sure that its dependents all build or 
did not build before your changes. Fix those who now fail to build.

I don't think having both versions is a good thing because it will create 
conflicts when installing (have you tried to install a package that propagates 
both to a profile?). It would be ok if they had no file in common but I doubt 
it is the case. For any package that requires version 2, make sure its 
dependencies only use version 2, or update the package if the newer version can 
support version 3. It's not always easy to find the right order of upgrades, as 
you should make sure nothing is broken in between patches.

Relying on propagated inputs to provide a dependency is going to simplify the 
graphs, but not the work of other maintainers who will have to investigate how 
the dependency is provided, so I don't think it's a good idea.

You should rebuild every dependent, even those who only depend on the package 
for native-inputs, since there can be an error an any point (though less 
likely).

I hope I answered your questions. Your message was split into two multipart 
sections and my client wasn't able to cite the interesting part, which makes it 
hard for me to check what your questions were while typing my answer.