[PPL-devel] debian/control: build-depends

[Michael Tautschnig]

>> 
>> - dependencies on g++ *Version 3.4.2* - why does it depend on exactly this 
>> single version
>
> In general, all versions of GCC have changed the implemented C++ ABI
> in one way or another.  This means that you cannot expect a C++ library
> compiled with GCC version x to work with a C++ program compiled with
> GCC version y if x != y.  The situation will no doubt improve in the
> future, but up to now things have been like this (to put it more
> directly: the user should use the very same version of g++ the
> packager did use).
This is problably true for the first minor version (such as 3.3 or 3.4), 
but I doubt it is true for versions such as 3.4.2 and 3.4.3 ... - you 
should note, that Debian knows the packages g++-3.3 and g++-3.4, but g++ 
is just a metapackage depending on g++-3.3 - thus a dependency on 
g++(=3.4.2) is IMHO unsatisfiable.

>
> Then, both 3.4.1 and 3.4.3 have bugs that affect the library.
> For 3.4.1 I was not completely sure the bug was in the compiler
> (as opposed to binutils or some other component of the toolchain).
> For 3.4.3 the situation was much worse and I had to quickly
> uninstall that version of the compiler from my machines.
>
I doubt these bugs are still contained in the current version of g++-3.4 
in Debian - very likely they would have been reported to the Debian-BTS 
already. Furthermore version 3.4.2 is not available in Debian (anymore) - 
and a dependency on a single version is always dangerous ...

> Finally, I believe we now depend on C++ features that are not
> correctly supported by 3.3.x.
Hmm - I built and used the library successfully, but only very small parts 
of this library :-)

>
>> - missing dependencies on automake1.9 and autoconf
>
> Automake and autoconf are only needed by developers.
> People downloading tarballs or packages do not need Automake,
> Autoconf or Libtool.  This is, at least, the intention.
> If I am mistaken, please let me know.

But they are required to build the package, aren't they? Thus I suppose 
they should be listed as build-dependencies ...


Another two points:

- Shouldn't it be called libppl instead of ppl?
- To allow multiple versions of ppl being installed at the same time 
(probably because of the g++-dependencies mentioned above), a 
version-number should be appended to the name of the main package, such as 
libppl0 or libppl8

Thanks for all your great afford,
Michael