Re: Should -dev packages providing .pc files depend on pkg-config?
On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 01:14:50PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 18:20:56 +0200, Bernhard R Link <brlink@debian.org> said:
> > Here I have to contradict. No -dev package should ever depend on a
> > compiler or linker, even if that tool was not already in
> > build-essentials.
>
> Can you provide some rationale for this assertion? I can see why
> one might not tie the development tool very strongly with a particular
> compiler or compiler version, to allow a developer to use it with an
> alternative development tool, but I can see why one may want to depend
> on a generic foo-lang-compiler-or-interpreter virtual package.
>
> There is obviously a trade off here -- the need to the
> development package to be useful on installation, by ensuring that the
> tools required to use the package are also installed, versus the need
> to allow people to use the package with alternate developer tools. Ar
> there other considerations and use cases you have in mind?
I can't speak for Bernhard of course, but my opinion is that such
dependencies of any sort are redundant. The development packages are
not usable by themselves, they are used by programs. If it's a dev
package for a C library that is used in a C program you want to compile,
then it's your program depending on the C compiler already. If it's a
module for Python used in a Python program, then the program depends on
the Python interpreter already.
I can't think of a scenario where the dev package would depend on a
compiler or interpreter that wouldn't be depended on by the actual user
(the program) of the package. They are used in an environment where the
dependency would by necessity already be fulfilled.
--
Andreas Bombe <bombe@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> GPG key 0x04880A44
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