Subject: Re: [bug#28421] [PATCH] gnu: Add uim.

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2017 21:48:14 +0200

Howdy,

Arun Isaac <[email-masked]> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Separate outputs would be fine, though I have a slight preference for
>> separate packages
>
> A general question: For what use cases do we use outputs, and for what
> use cases do we use separate packages? How are these two features
> different?

They’re similar, indeed.  In some cases, separate outputs is the only
mechanism that can be used—for instance for “debug” outputs, or even
“lib” outputs to some extent.

In other cases, such as this one, there’s no practical difference
between having separate outputs and having separate packages.

When there’s a choice, I tend to prefer to use outputs for the
“standard” things (“lib”, “debug”, “doc”, etc.), and separate packages
for less obvious splits (“qt”, “gtk”, etc.)

This is a very informal description.  Maybe someone could articulate it
better and we could provide guidelines in the manual?

Anyway, HTH!

Ludo’.