Dependency loops considered harmful?

[Michael Schwendt]

On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 12:10:13 -0500 (CDT), Jon Ciesla wrote:

> > For example, why games data depend on binaries?
> 
> So that if we try to upgrade the version of the binaries and not the data,
> it will fail.

Unconvincing.

Why? Because the game program pkg could require a specific version of
the data pkg to achieve the same. If game version gets bumped, dep
would break, since you would need to update data pkg, too. Game requires
compatible data. So far so good.

However, if the data pkg requires the game pkg (versioned! or else it
would not be strict enough for your needs), this only increases the
risk that you need to bump'n'rebuild the data pkg if the game version
is increased without needing any changed data. It's a superfluous
dependency that only tries to enhance "yum remove" a bit.