[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #53984] pkg update - Unable to continue updating when a package error is found

[Philip Nienhuis]

Follow-up Comment #3, bug #53984 (project octave):

You seem to miss the point in your first example.
What if package B were dependent on package A v1.5?
If updating A to 1.5 failed, yet package B would succesfully be updated to 2.0
(dependent on A v1.5), package B would be left with an unfulfilled
dependency.

You're quite right that updating in alphabetical order looks suboptimal at
best. It seems better to update in order of dependency, but then again, what
if two or more packages are mutually dependent?

IMNSHO the whole idea of having an option to update all packages with just one
command is asking for trouble.
The culprit is not so much the package system itself but rather that:
* packages may not have been fully tested for proper installation on as many
systems as possible;
* new packages may have new dependencies, not only other packages but maybe
system and/or external libraries as well.
To make that all failsafe within one command is simply untenable.
It is much better practice to update packages one by one, taking dependency
order into account and with the "-nodeps" flag where unavoidable.


So all in all the workflow for "pkg update" as it stands is IMO the right
one:
"pkg update" stops at a failing package installation and IMO rightfully
requires to first fix that installation failure (maybe manually with a simple
"-nodeps" flag); and then, once fixed, try the next packages, hopefully w/o
new errors.


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