[csw-maintainers] Handling of devel package splits

[James Lee]

On 07/10/09, 21:51:34, Sebastian Kayser <skayser at opencsw.org> wrote
regarding Re: [csw-maintainers] Handling of devel package splits:

> > + It's a pain for the developer to know to install the -dev packages.
> >   Not all packages naturally have dev parts and it's not possible to
> >   tell if it's missing or never exists (oh great, lets have empty
> >   packages where none is needed to keep the system symmetric and avoid
> >   all confusion).

> This reminds me of when i started using Debian. It was always the one
> -devel package that was missing. You get used to it somehow, just in our
> case one doesn't even know whether there is a a -devel package at all.

I don't know Debian but am I right in thinking it's both an OS and user
software distribution?  In which case it's more like the user software
that come with Solaris.  Consider an OS supplied supplementary package:

$ pkginfo | grep SUNWjpg
GNOME2      SUNWjpg                          jpeg - The Independent JPEG
Groups JPEG software
GNOME2      SUNWjpg-devel                    jpeg - The Independent JPEG
Groups JPEG software - development files
GNOME2      SUNWjpg-devel-share              jpeg - The Independent JPEG
Groups JPEG software - development files - /usr/share


It's split into 3 parts.  First notice that although it is split I have
all three parts so without looking at the packaging it's no different to
having a single package.

Reasons to install a full distribution at OS install:

(1) It avoids decided what is needed and what is not.  At first install
I defy anyone to know what every package does.

(2) Can patch the system and then use a patch version of something
I later found I needed.  If only some OS packages are installed and
the system is patched and later more OS packages are add the additions
are unpatched.  Best to add them in the first place.

(3) The hassle of adding later - it's not as easy as pkg-get.

So I accept that a system has bits I don't need for reasons I don't
need to know.

There are cases when a bare system install is right but think how that
is achieved.  Not by naming each packages on the command line of pkg-get
but by a single selection made at install time.  If there was an install
option such that when I install foo I get foo-dev or not than it would
make managing the shadow development set easier.



James.