Why aren't all the USE variables set in /etc/make.conf?

[m3thos]

Why aren't the USE variables in the make.conf like in the rc6 version of gentoo??

that was mucht better, all the settings were visible in one file and it was easy do enable and disable those.

it's much more unpractical to have a /etc/make.profile/make.defaults with only that and BUILD instead of having everything in make.conf.

I also believe that MAKEOPTS should be in make.conf .. since is a variable that should be set by the user... and make.globals should contain only system settings variables and not variables to be tweaked by the user.

now to configure a system one must check and possibly modify several files:
make.conf
make.globals
make.defaults (at least I have to see what's defined there, to desable in make.conf)

I'm saying this because I find this new method of setting the USE variables much more messy, confusing and complex, rather than being simple, straightforward, and clean.

In case that the USE settings remain this way.. is it possible to configure gentoo to use a old style USE variables method, so that I define all the use variables in make.conf and gentoo only looks there for them.

thanks!

p.s.: sorry the bad english, but you would probably find portuguese harder to understand!
_________________
Miguel Sousa Filipe
handle: m3thos
More human than human

[stroke]

What I do ,and I think it works just fine, is adding a -*
as first thing in the USE veriable in the /etc/make.conf file

This way you should unset all the flags that are set in the other files.
So you can add there (in make.conf) all you need.

Correct me if I'm wrong.