[wpkg-users] [Bug 117] Dependencies ignore priority

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http://bugzilla.wpkg.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117





--- Comment #11 from Rainer Meier <r.meier at wpkg.org>  2008-05-09 22:49:17 ---
> Umm, I would just point out that the combination of priority and the original
> meaning of "depends" would cover chaining and dependencies!

Well, first of all: I do not call this dependency management at all. That's
also why I put a note to the change notes for some 1.0 releases that
dependencies have been fixed now - simply because the implementation did never
reflect real dependency management - but a kind of "include".

So the upcoming "include" functionality will allow you to do the same. However
includes in this sense are by no means providing an appropriate replacement for
real dependencies. As I already wrote this might be acceptable to for a few
packages. But "leveling" out various cross-"dependencies" using such an include
functionality could become a real headache.

In any case the "include" functionality will bring you back this possibility.

I am not yet sure if such a thing as "chaining" would still be a requirement
then. In fact I don't really think so since chaining is a very very rare
use-case and using include and dependencies could do the job as well.

Example:
OfficeXP, includes OfficeSP3
OfficeSP3, depends on OfficeSP3

This allows you to just add OfficeSP3 to the profile. As it includes OfficeSP3
it will either first try to install OfficeSP3 or OffcieXP.
If OfficeSP3 is the first one to be installed (by priority) it makes sure that
OfficeXP is installed before (due to the dependency).
If OfficeXP is installed before (by priority) then it will simply install and
later on WPKG will add OfficeSP3.

I think Jens had another extremely rare use case where he OfficeXP would
require that OfficeSP3 is installed AFTER - but without dependency as the
OfficeSP3 package could also be installed independently. Since this is a very
rare use case I think it's acceptable to do it by "priority" leveling. Which
means that OfficeXP includes OfficeSP3 but OfficeSP3 does not define a
dependency. So OfficeSP3 could be installed independently but when OfficeXP is
installed, then it's kind of "chained".

So I think I am going to add the include extension.


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