raising Yum's IQ (was: Re: [fedora-java] Re: Fedora Core 5 Wishlist)

[Vadim Nasardinov]

On Friday 16 September 2005 12:52, Andrew Haley wrote:
> Vadim Nasardinov writes:
> > On Friday 16 September 2005 07:24, Gary Benson wrote:
> > > a brief summary:
> > > 
> > >  1. Native code in the same rpms as the bytecode.
> > >  2. Native code in separate rpms to the bytecode.
> > ...
> > > Method 2, which is what you're proposing, has the following
> > > drawbacks over Method 1:
> > ...
> > >  - The native package would not have access to the sources, and
> > >    would not be able to generate a useful debuginfo package.
> > >    This would render the packages undebuggable with gdb.
> > 
> > Can you elaborate?  I thought native compilation worked by taking
> > .class files as input.  Where do the sources come in?
> 
> You don't debug bytecode: you debug source.  Debuginfo contains
> source.

The part I didn't understand was how specifically Method 2 would
prevent you from generating appropriate debuginfo packages.  I think
the source of my confusion was that I misintepreted Gary's definition
of "Method 2".  I was thinking along the lines of David Walluck's
long-standing proposal (I hope I'm not putting words in his mouth) to
share exact same .spec files between Fedora and JPackage but have
native-compilation-related spec logic conditionalized.

I am a little fuzzy on why sharing exact same .spec files (modulo
minor distro-specific patches) is infeasible.

Even with Gary's definition of Method 2 (call it M2), it's not clear
to me why debuginfo packages are impossible to generate. (I think M2
amounts effectively to having two SRPMs for the same application).