[haiku-development] Re: Package Management - devel or not to devel?
- From: Joseph Prostko <joe.prostko@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2013 12:24:43 -0400
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> Maybe someone can give some details on the negative use case that makes
>> devel packages an "endless pain" and causes "untold hours of frustration". I
>> can't relate at all.
>
> In the last few years, when I've used Linux I've mainly used Ubuntu
> and Arch. I can't say I've had endless pain in trying to do
> development in Ubuntu where there are development packages, but I will
> say Arch was a breath of fresh air in NOT having them.
I have a similar use case as Ryan, where my personal Linux use is
mostly in Manjaro (Arch variant), and sometimes in Linux Mint (Ubuntu
variant). I deal with RHEL everyday at work as well. Sure, having to
install the devel packages has been a slight annoyance, but nothing
major. I just know now that if I'm building PHP on our RHEL servers,
I better pull in freetype-devel, libjpeg-devel, libtool-ltdl-devel,
libmcrypt-devel, libpng-devel, and libxml2-devel, or else I'll have
builds that bomb out. So yes, it's an inconvenience to have to
install the devel packages, but it's not the end of the world, and I
just know to install those packages if need be.
> It might be more of a case of being easier and simpler in not having
> the development packages than them causing a bunch of pain. Though for
> poorly documented projects it can be quite frustrating trying to
> figure out what is needed to compile and then having to install those
> development packages, but it may be unfair to blame that on the
> packaging system.
Agreed, I often just rely on trial-and-error to figure this out when
it's not mentioned what packages are needed for a typical build.
> With all this said, I could envision there being a setting for the
> package management system which always installs the -devel packages
> when the main package is installed (assuming the -devel package
> exists.) This then can satisfy both camps without being a bad
> compromise.
That seems like a good idea to me, although I overall prefer not
having separate -devel packages nowadays. That should satisfy both
camps though, I would think.
> Obviously it still complicates life a bit for the packagers to have to
> create separate -devel packages, so I think that is a down side.
From what Ingo said, it's not dramatically more work, but yes, I
suppose a little bit of additional work is more than no additional
work.
- joe
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