Re: wording: "reverse dependence" vs "depender"

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

Adam Borowski wrote:
> I wonder, would it be better if we switched to using the word "depender"
> in place of "reverse dependency"?  It certainly sounds clumsier, but it
> is far less likely to be confused, especially by new readers.  I myself
> often find sentences which include references to both depends and
> reverse depends quite hard to parse.

Personally, I tend to use phrases like "packages that depend on", or
sometimes "packages with Depends on" (which also expands nicely into
"packages with Depends or Recommends on").  Somewhat more verbose, but
unambiguously clear.

For instance, instead of "reverse-dependencies of libfoo-dev", I'd write
"packages with Depends on libfoo-dev".

- Josh Triplett