Dependency loops considered harmful?

[Matthew Woehlke]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:23:11 -0500, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> 
>>> That works for a Mom and Pop desktop but doesn't work as a developer's
>>> workstation.  When developing software you might need a library that
>>> does Foo.  Look on the system, hey, I can use libFoo!  A few weeks
>>> later, when you remove Gnome-Foo from your system because your shiny new
>>>  application does the job,
>> Why would you do such a thing?
> 
> Because developers build their app from local working-directories (or
> check-outs from source code management systems) and run the software from
> the same private path or install into /usr/local for testing. It's not
> unusual to install without using RPM.

...which is, in a sense, the real problem. The issue as I see it is that 
rolling an RPM takes a *lot* more time and effort than 'make install', 
especially with CMake (2.6 does /very/ fast installs). It would be 
REALLY GOOD to install everything as an rpm (not least because this 
would clean up cruft from old builds!), but it needs to be fast, and it 
needs to be do-able without using root privilege. Otherwise I think the 
costs will outweigh the benefits for a lot of people.

-- 
Matthew
This message represents the official view of the voices in my head.
   -- Unknown
(found at http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/fun.html)