Hi,
Jan de Groot wrote:
For the base/base-devel discussion: when building packages, base-devel
and base should be installed. Looking at debian-alike distributions, I
don't see packages makedepending on g++ either when c++ code needs to be
compiled.
The gcc dependency within base-devel would cover the use of g++.
Perhaps I "muddied" the waters by suggesting that a user could choose to
not install gawk.
Maybe the real question is: What is the purpose of base-devel?
1) To specify the standalone packages required to build base packages or
2) To specify a recommended set of packages required for package
building in general
If the answer is (1) and something in base requires gawk to build then I
suggest gawk should be a dependency of base-devel.
If the answer is (2) then I guess I can live with the implied
requirement that gawk is installed as part of base _always_.
I suppose I'm being a bit pedantic here but, from my engineering
background, I don't really like assumptions and would prefer explicit
requirement.
I don't have the exact quote to hand but it has been said that "90% of
programming errors arise from false assumptions". I guess that's why
formal design methodologies evolved - but that's another story ;-)
Regards,
Neil Darlow
